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

Radiofarda – The European Film Academy and the Berlin International Film Festival, known as Berlinale, have jointly called for the immediate release of renowned Iranian lawyer and human rights defender, Nasrin Sotoudeh, featured in Jafar Panahi’s Golden Bear-winning “Taxi.” Ms. Sotoudeh has been on a hunger strike since August 10, protesting the dire condition of political prisoners and demanding their immediate release …

Radiofarda – Iran said Saturday it condemned a former top judiciary official to 31 years in prison for corruption, one of the heaviest sentences against a former official in the Islamic republic. Akbar Tabari received the jail term after being convicted of “setting up and heading a bribery network”, judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili told state television. The high-profile trial of …

Ayatollah Yousef Saanei, a pro-reform Iranian cleric and a critic of the establishment who sided with the opposition movement following the controversial 2009 presidential election, has died. He was 83. Ayatollah Saanei died in a hospital in the holy Shi’ite city of Qom after being hospitalized for two days with a broken hip and wrist, Iranian state media reported.In 2009, …

HRW : Iran authorities executed Navid Afkari, who confessed to crimes under torture. This cruel act, in defiance of an international outcry for a fair retrial, shows an utter disregard for the most fundamental human rights norms. Iran: Wrestler on Death Row for Alleged Murder  (Beirut) – The case of an Iranian wrestler on death row is part of a systematic pattern in …

Amnesty – The secret execution this morning of wrestling champion Navid Afkari, without prior notice to him, his family or lawyer, after a grossly unfair trial, is a horrifying travesty of justice that needs immediate international action.“Navid Afkari was a young man with a promising future ahead of him. Carrying out his death sentence with such utter disregard for the …