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

VOA – Iran’s human rights record came under sharp criticism at the U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday, with a U.N. expert singling out Iran’s crackdown on dissent and practice of sentencing children to death. Presenting his first report to the Geneva-based council since taking office in July, the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, cited what …

VOA – Iranian construction companies are to build thousands of residential units in the suburbs of Syria’s capital, Damascus, an Iranian state-run news agency has reported. Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) recently quoted a business official with the country’s investment association, who announced that Iran would build 200,000 residential units near Damascus. Iraj Rahbar, vice president of Iran’s Mass Construction …

HRW – Draconian Sentence for Well-Known Activist The Iranian judiciary’s draconian sentence for a prominent human rights lawyer is an appalling travesty of justice, Human Rights Watch said today. Branch 28 of Tehran’s revolutionary court has reportedly sentenced Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been in prison since June 2018 serving a 5-year sentence, to an additional 33 years in prison and 148 …

Amnesty – A series of videos shared on social media in recent weeks have shed light on the daily harassment and violent attacks women in Iran face at the hands of morality police and pro-government vigilantes seeking to enforce the country’s forced hijab (veiling) laws, said Amnesty International. The videos show members of the public or plain-clothes morality police aggressively confronting or attacking …

Amnesty – The sentencing of prominent Iranian human rights lawyer and women’s rights defender Nasrin Sotoudeh to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes in a new case against her is an outrageous injustice, said Amnesty International today.  The sentence, reported on her husband Reza Khandan’s Facebook page on 11 March, brings her total sentence after two grossly unfair trials …