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

Iranwire – Shops and businesses in the Iranian city of Semirom shut down on February 1 in a general strike protesting the transfer of two brothers on death row to solitary confinement.  Footage circulating online shows deserted streets and closed shops across the city, located in the central province of Isfahan, amid fear that Fazel and Mehran Bahramian could be …

Iranwire – Several political prisoners incarcerated in Ward 6 of Tehran’s Evin prison have gone on hunger strike to protest the recent spate of executions in Iran.  While launching their indefinite protest on January 31, the detainees condemned the increased use of the death penalty by the Iranian authorities as “inhuman,” an informed source told IranWire. Ward 6 of Evin …

Iranwire – The advent of newspapers and journalism in Iran sparked a wave of repression, threats, imprisonment and even murder.  From Mirza Jahangir-Khan Sur-e-Esrafil, the founder of the Sur-e-Esrafil newspaper in 1909, to Shahrzad Hemmati, the social desk editor of Shargh newspaper this week, journalists have faced many serious challenges. Hostility toward journalism escalated since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but …

Iranwire – A political prisoner is facing imminent execution in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad amid a surge in the use of the death penalty in the country.  “Political prisoner Mohammad Javad Vafaie, currently held in Vakil Abad Prison, Mashhad, is facing the threat of being executed,” the HRANA human rights website reported on January 31.  Vafaie, a 28-year-old …

RFL/RE – An Iranian man is being held for allegedly murdering his 17-year-old son over what he called the teenager’s “feminine” behavior and makeup, in a case that has put the plight of the Islamic nation’s LGBT community in the spotlight once again. According to the Rokna news agency, the father, distressed by his son’s conduct in the northwestern city …