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

Iran-HRM – Labor activist Shapour Ehsani Rad has been summoned to Branch 1 of Evin Prison’s Implementation of Verdicts to serve his sentence, the Free Trade Union of Workers in Iran reported. Shapour Ehsani Rad received an electronic mail on April 12, 2020, instructing him to turn himself in within five days to serve his prison sentence. The Revolutionary Court …

RFL/RE – Iran’s foreign minister has held talks with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad as both countries grapple with the coronavirus outbreak. The country’s official government news agency IRNA said Mohammad Javad Zarif met with Assad in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on April 20, but no further details were released. Photographs posted to the Iranian government’s Twitter account showed Zarif and …

RFL/RE – The global death toll from the coronavirus is more than 165,000 with more than 2.4 million infections confirmed, causing mass disruptions as governments continue to try to slow the spread of the new respiratory illness. Here’s a roundup of COVID-19 developments in RFE/RL’s broadcast regions. Iran Iran has further loosened coronavirus restrictions, opening intercity highways and shopping malls …

RFL/RE – The lawyer of an Iranian-French academic being tried in Tehran on security charges says he expects the court in charge of the case to issue its ruling in the coming days. Fariba Adelkhah’s lawyer told AFP by telephone that Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court held a session in her trial on April 19 — the second since …

VOA – Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard acknowledged Sunday it had a tense encounter with U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf last week, but alleged without offering evidence that American forces sparked the incident.  The incident Wednesday saw the U.S. Navy release video of small Iranian fast boats coming close to American warships as they operated in the northern Persian Gulf …