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

RFL/RE – After completing a five-year sentence in 1987, Mehrzad Dashtbani was summoned to the “freedom room,” an in-house court at Iran’s Gohardasht Prison that decided if an inmate could be freed. But instead of securing his release papers from the facility located outside the capital, Tehran, Dashtbani’s visit earned him a personal beating from a prison official known only …

gatestoneinstitute.org – The whispering in Moscow is that Putin will try to tempt Biden with a number of promises. These include persuading the Islamic Republic in Iran to re-endorse the Obama “nuclear deal”, which President Donald Trump denounced as a sham. Tehran’s acceptance of a new version presented by the US would give Biden his first diplomatic victory. In exchange …

Iranwire – January 8, 2020 marks the two-year anniversary of a tragedy Iranians will never forget. On this date, shortly after 6am, the IRGC shot a passenger plane – Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752 – out of the skies over Tehran with two missiles 30 seconds apart. The plane had taken off from Imam Khomeini International Airport just minutes earlier. All …

CHRI – The death of Iranian poet Baktash Abtin today in Tehran after contracting COVID-19 in Evin Prison is the result of the Iranian judiciary chief’s inhumane treatment of prisoners and the government’s refusal to hold responsible officials accountable. Abtin, who died after being put into an induced coma while hospitalized, is the second known political prisoner to die in Iran in …

Al-Monitor – This week Iran commemorated the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 3 US drone strike which killed Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander (IRGC) Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), in Baghdad, with speeches, threats and rockets targeting US bases in Iraq. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, Soleimani’s replacement, vowed retaliation, saying “We will get revenge that …