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

RFL/RE – In a break with policy, Iranian officials have started talking publicly about the possibility of the country building a nuclear bomb. After Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, against nuclear weapons in 2005, officials were adamant that Tehran’s nuclear program was strictly for civilian purposes. But the rhetoric has shifted in recent weeks. …

RFL/RE – Rights activist Maryam Karimbeigi has been sentenced to three years and seven months in prison for attending a concert by the popular Iranian singer Ebi in Turkey. Amir Raisian, Karimbeigi’s lawyer, told the Modara website on August 1 that the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran recently handed down the sentence for the charge of “assembly and collusion with …

Iranwire – A religious scholar well-known online for his criticism of the Iranian regime has been stripped of his clerical garb and sentenced to two years in prison. Vahid Heroabadi was arrested in May on the Bazargan, West Azerbaijan border between Iran and Turkey. He had earlier been charged with “insulting the leadership”, “spreading lies”, “disturbing the public mind” and …

VOA – The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Tuesday that Iran’s nuclear program is “growing in ambition and capacity” and his agency needs full access to verify all aspects of it. International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi acknowledged that Tehran’s current nuclear program is very different from its 2015 program, when the deal with the …

Iran-HRM – Eleven months after the murder of a child bride by her cleric husband in Lorestan western Iran, Shargh state-run daily said the cleric is free while the journalist who exposed the cleric’s role in the murder has been sentenced to prison. According to the July 31 report, Ali Mojtahedzadeh, the lawyer of the journalist who exposed the murder …