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

Al-Monitor – Iran’s Judiciary Chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei ordered an investigation into abuses at Evin Prison after leaked videos were published online and in foreign media. His letter to Mohammad Montazeri, the prosecutor general, ordered a report to be presented “without delay about the behaviors of the officers with prisoners.” A hacker group calling itself “Ali’s Justice” claims to have hacked the video cameras inside …

RFL/RE – The U.S. special envoy for Iran says Washington has started to question whether Tehran is still willing to return to full compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal, which imposed significant restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for relief from crippling sanctions. “We don’t know if Iran’s intent remains to come back into compliance with the JCPOA as …

iranwire – The Iranian regime has been openly supportive of Bashar al-Assad’s despotic regime in Syria ever since the outset of the Syrian uprisings in 2011. It has dispatched militants to the battlefield in untold numbers, stood by Al-Assad in global propaganda drives and set up cultural organizations in a bid to influence public opinion inside Syria. Nevertheless, the regime has always denied trying to affect …

RFL/RE – Iran has reported a record daily 709 deaths from COVID-19 as the country struggled with yet another surge in infections, this time fueled by the highly contagious Delta variant. The new Health Ministry figures, cited by state-run ISNA news agency on August 24, add to the woes for Iran, which has long been the worst-hit country in the Middle …

Iranwire – President Ebrahim Raisi starts his presidency this month as Iran’s inflation rate has exceeded 45 percent – a record over the past year according to the Statistics Center. If the Central Bank had published its own data, perhaps the figure would have been even higher; but Iran’s Central Bank stopped publishing inflation reports almost three years ago, and the Statistics …