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Al-Monitor – A high-ranking Shiite religious official was killed in Iran on Wednesday. Relatively few details are known about the incident at present. Abbas Ali Soleimani Esbukalai, 75, was the Friday imam in the city of Kashan in central Iran from 2020 to 2022, and also served on Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the council that appoints the supreme leader of the country. …

Al-Arabia – Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu held talks with the defense ministers of Turkey, Syria and Iran on Tuesday as part of closely-watched negotiations in Moscow aimed at normalizing ties between Ankara and Damascus. In a readout published after the meeting, Russia’s defense ministry said all four countries had reaffirmed their “desire to preserve Syria’s territorial integrity and the …

BBC – Iran formed a secret committee last year to punish celebrities who backed the current anti-government protests, leaked documents seen by the BBC show. In a letter dated 22 September, just six days after the unrest began, the committee sent the economy ministry a list of 141 well-known figures. It told the ministry to investigate their tax returns and …

Iranwire – Iranian police say they have filed a legal case against two female actors, Katayoun Riahi and Panthea Bahram, who have recently appeared in public without a mandatory head covering. The two actresses are accused of “removing hijab in public and publishing pictures on the internet,” Tehran police said in a statement on April 24.  Riahi and Bahram are …

Iranwire – Over the past seven months, Iranian security forces have “killed, tortured, sexually assaulted and disappeared children” as part of a brutal crackdown on protests and dissent by people demanding fundamental change in the country, Human Rights Watch (HRW) says. The authorities have also arrested and detained minors without notifying their families, sometimes for weeks, and interrogated and prosecuted …