Shabtabnews In this dark night, I have lost my way – Arise from a corner, oh you the star of guidance.

Al-Monitor – The Iranian public’s rage at the state-led crackdown on fuel price hike protests in November 2019 has only accumulated over the past 18 months, as authorities refuse to come clean or release any official report into the killings and abuses. A series of inflammatory comments and decisions by Iranian officials over the past week seems to have further intensified the …

Al-Monitor – The European Union’s decision to add eight Iranian security officials and three entities to its list of sanctions over human rights violations has drawn strongly worded statements of condemnation from the Islamic Republic. On April 14, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed the move as “shameful” and criticized the European bloc for “giving in to pressure from hard-line groups” in the United States …

Iranwire – The process of peace talks in Afghanistan continues even as the situation of those Afghan citizens who were previously part of the Islamic Republic’s Fatemiyoun Brigade – the Afghan-born expeditionary force that Iran had deployed to the civil war in Syria, drawn from Afghan migrants inside Iran – remain unclear. Critics have said the Islamic Republic continues to influence …

Iranwire – Iran’s judiciary has announced that the rate of blood money levies for a human being for the year 2021-2022 should be 480 million tomans ($19,200). The judiciary’s statement added an apparently new clause: that the blood money of a fetus four months or older should be equal to the the full 480 million tomans rate, if the fetus …

VOA – With the U.S. and Iran planning their second round of indirect nuclear talks in Vienna this week, some analysts say Sunday’s sabotage of Iran’s Natanz nuclear site has weakened the Iranian position, while others contend it all depends on Iran’s response. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that the U.S. expects the indirect talks to proceed …