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

Al-Monitor – The Iranian government cut internet access in the past week during protests in an impoverished province, according to an internet watchdog. There were disruptions to internet access on cellphones from July 15-20, and the blockage knocked out approximately 3% to 4% of mobile data in Iran, the London-based NetBlocks announced Wednesday. The group said there were “widespread user reports of …

Al-Arabia – Protesters angry about water shortages took to the streets of southwest Iran for a sixth night in a row on Tuesday, with mounting violence, while Tehran residents chanted anti-government slogans, according to videos posted on social media on Wednesday and Iranian news outlets. Videos uploaded by social media users showed security forces using teargas to disperse protesters. The …

RFL/RE – Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, whose health has “seriously deteriorated” since her arrest three years ago, has been granted a five-day treatment leave from prison. Sotoudeh will undergo various medical examinations, according to a post her husband, Reza Khandan, wrote on his Facebook page, “Nasrin has come home on treatment leave for five days,” he wrote in the post, which also …

Iranwire – The thousands-strong protests over the water crisis in Khuzestan have refocused attention on an unfolding ecological disaster going back years. Since the turn of the century, Iran has been experiencing “anthropogenic drought”: severe water stress, caused specifically by destructive and unsustainable land and water management, by human beings. This summer, farmers in Khuzestan have been left unable to irrigate their …

RFL/RE – Iran says it has opened its first oil export terminal in the Gulf of Oman to allow Tehran to avoid using the strategic Strait of Hormuz shipping route that has long been a focus of regional tensions. “Today, the first shipment of 100 tons of oil is loaded outside the Strait of Hormuz,” President Hassan Rohani said in …