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

Al-Monitor – Iranians continue to react to the decision to bar well-known Reformists and centrists from running in next month’s presidential elections. Iran’s Guardian Council, a 12-member unelected body charged with vetting candidates, announced the final list of approved candidates earlier this week, and many prominent presidential hopefuls from the Reformist camp were absent. The most notable disqualification continues to be former parliament speaker …

Al-Arabia – One person died and two others were wounded in an explosion at a petrochemical complex in southern Iran on Wednesday, state news agency IRNA reported. The governor of the city of Asaluyeh in Bushehr province, where the explosion occurred, said the incident was due to the explosion of the oxygen transmission pipeline to two petrochemical companies in the …

Iranwire – Prominent activist Faezeh Hashemi has spoken publicly about Ali Larijani’s surprise ousting from the presidential race, stating that in doing so, Iran’s leadership had abandoned all pretense of an authentic election. The Guardian Council announced on May 25 that it had disqualified Ali Larijani, former speaker of parliament and a figure trusted by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, from …

Iranwire – Effat Mahbaz lost her brother and husband during the massacres of political dissidents in the late 1980s. In that period, she herself spent seven years being tortured in Evin prison. Now, in a letter to Jamila Alam al-Hoda, the wife of Ebrahim Raeesi – a member of the Khomeneist “death panel” that oversaw the killings in 1988, and …

RFL/RE – Outgoing Iranian President Hassan Rohani says he has urged the country’s supreme leader to widen the field in next month’s presidential election after only seven candidates were approved and several of his high-profile allies were rejected. Rohani said during a weekly cabinet meeting on May 26 that he wished the Guardians Council would select more candidates to ensure …