July, 2021

• 30 July

  Rights Watchdog Urges Iran To Release Those Detained During Recent Protests, Investigate Abuses

  

  RFL/RE – Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on Iranian authorities to “immediately and unconditionally” release those detained during protests against water shortages and economic hardships in Khuzestan and other provinces and to investigate the abusive use of lethal force.Demonstrations than began on July 15 in dozens of towns and cities in Khuzestan, a province with a large ethnic Arab …

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• 30 July

  One Hour of Running Water a Day for Residents of Oil-Rich Khuzestan

  

  Iranwire – The residents of a small town in Mashahr County, Khuzestan have reported having just one hour of running water a day. Protests broke out in Khuzestan mid-July over severe water shortages across the province. In the dilapidated town of Taleghani, families told Asr-e Iran newspaper they have been under severe water stress for 15 years. The report, published on Thursday, July 29, …

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• 30 July

  The Dark Side: How a Corrupt ‘Privatization’ Drive Led to Blackouts in Iran

  

  Iranwire – Protests in Khuzestan over chronic water shortages began in mid-July this year. People have since taken to the streets in other Iranian cities in solidarity with their cause, chanting anti-government slogans and even tearing down banners of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Elsewhere in Iran, tensions have also flared up over the widespread power outages that have now plagued the country for months. When the …

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• 30 July

  “What Else Can they Do?”: Rage and Resignation in Iran Over Internet Filtering Bill

  

  Iranwire – On Wednesday, July 28, Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament voted to implement a new law that could further restrict Iranians’ access to the internet and social media. The hugely controversial and surreally-named “Bill for the Protection of Cyberspace Users” allows the Iranian armed forces to more stringently monitor internet traffic into and out of Iran. It also states that foreign …

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• 30 July

  Esmail Fatehi, Mansour Mohammadi and Mozafar X Executed in Qazvin

  

  Iran Human Rights (IHR) – Esmail Fatehi, Mansour Mohammadi and Mozafar (surname unknown) have been executed on drug-related charges in Qazvin Central Prison. At least 55 prisoners, including a woman, have been executed on drug-related charges in Iranian prisons in 2021. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, three men were executed on drug-related charges on the morning of July …

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• 30 July

  Blinken: Iran nuclear talks ‘cannot go on indefinitely’

  

  Al-Monitor – Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that negotiations to revive the Iranian nuclear agreement “cannot go on indefinitely.” Blinken made the remarks during a news conference in Kuwait City with the Kuwaiti foreign minister, Sheikh Ahmed Nasser Al Mohammed Al Sabah. The top US diplomat met with senior officials in the Gulf country ​​for talks focused on …

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• 29 July

  Iranian Battles Iranian Refugee At The Tokyo Olympics

  

  RFL/RE – It was a bittersweet moment for many Iranians. Kimia Alizadeh, an Iranian taekwondo fighter, beat her opponent, also from Iran, at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.Alizadeh, who emigrated to Europe in 2020 after criticizing the oppression of women in the Islamic republic, represented the Refugee Team while her opponent and former teammate, Nahid Kiayani, was fighting for their …

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• 29 July

  Ali Khamenei Blasts the Rouhani Administration in Final Cabinet Meeting

  

  Iranwire – This week the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran delivered a startling reproach to the outgoing Rouhani administration in its final weeks of office. During his last meeting with Hassan Rouhani’s cabinet on Wednesday, July 28, Ali Khamenei criticized the group’s past confidence in “the West”, stating: “The next government must use this experience.” The remarks fell in …

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• 29 July

  Three Decades After the Iran-Iraq War, Khuzestan’s Reconstruction is Still Unfinished

  

  Iranwire – For the last two weeks, a single word has dominated headlines in Iran: “Khuzestan”. Nightly street protests in this deprived province, prompted by the water crisis and inflamed by brutal state violence, have since spilled over into other Iranian cities. Rallies have now been held from Tehran to Isfahan to Lorestan, with participants chanting slogans against the Islamic …

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• 29 July

  Isfahan Police Chief: No Motorcycle Licenses for Women on My Watch

  

  Iranwire – Isfahan’s traffic police chief has insisted women in his central Iranian city are not allowed to obtain motorcycle licenses, in defiance of a court ruling two years ago. Mohammad Reza Mohammadi told local council-owned Iran Metropolis News Agency (IMNA) on Tuesday that this was his interpretation of Article 20 of Iran’s Law on Investigation of Road Traffic Violations. The law …

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• 29 July

  U.S., EU Must Speak Out Forcefully to Avoid Further Bloodshed in Iran

  

  CHRI—As state security forces in Iran continue to violently suppress peaceful protests that erupted in Khuzestan province and have since spread to other areas of the country, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) calls on the U.S. and European countries to condemn the government’s lethal use of force against the protesters, and to demand that the Iranian authorities allow peaceful …

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• 29 July

  Iran’s supreme leader says ‘cowardly’ US cannot be trusted

  

  Al-Monitor – As the United States and other Western nations await for the new Iranian administration to take over Aug. 3 in order to complete negotiations on the nuclear deal, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has suggested that deep differences still remain. In a July 28 meeting with outgoing President Hassan Rouhani and his Cabinet, Khamenei summed up the Rouhani administration’s performance …

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• 29 July

  US condemns violence against protesters in Iran

  

  Al-Monitor – The State Department on Wednesday condemned the use of violence against anti-government protesters in Iran, a rebuke that comes as nuclear negotiations with Tehran remain at a standstill. The widespread protests, which erupted nearly two weeks ago over chronic water shortages in the southwestern region of Khuzestan, have spread to several cities including the capital, Tehran. Amnesty International has …

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• 29 July

  An overview of climate change in Iran: facts and statistics

  

  environmentalsystemsresearch – The climate change fact is intensive among the Middle East countries and especially Iran. Among the Middle East countries, Iran will experience an increase of 2.6 °C in mean temperatures and a 35% decline in precipitation in the next decades. In vice versa, Iran by total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions nearly to 616,741 million tons of CO2 is the first …

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• 29 July

  Iran’s crimes and acts of war will continue until Biden responds forcefully

  

  washingtontimes – The plot was audacious: Agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran would kidnap an American citizen on American soil. Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-born journalist and human rights activist, was to be grabbed, spirited out of Brooklyn to Venezuela, and then on to Tehran where she would have been imprisoned, tortured, and, almost certainly, executed. Last week, the FBI, to its enormous credit, …

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• 28 July

  ‘A New Life’: Iranian Defector Wins Silver Medal For Mongolia In Tokyo

  

  RFL/RE – Saeid Mollaei, an Iranian defector representing Mongolia at the Tokyo Olympics, has won a silver medal in judo for his adopted country. Mollaei, 29, lost to Japan’s Takanori Nagase in the men’s 81-kg judo final on July 27. Mollaei, who won the 2018 world championship title, left Iran two years ago after being ordered to deliberately lose at …

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• 28 July

  More Arrests as Protests Intensify in Cities Across Iran

  

  Iranwire – Furious anti-government protests continued in cities across Iran last night, almost two weeks after demonstrations first began over the water crisis in Khuzestan. In videos published from the city of Isfahan in central Iran, a large night-time crowd could be heard chanting “Isfahan, Khuzestan, Unity, Unity” while protesters tore down a banner depicting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Similar slogans were …

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• 28 July

  Hamid Nouri to Face Trial for War Crimes in Sweden Over 1988 Massacre of Iranian Prisoners

  

  Iranwire – Former Iranian prison official Hamid Nouri is to stand trial on the charges of grave war crimes and murder in a Swedish court next month. Swedish public prosecutors Kristina Lindhoff Carleson and Martina Winslow have brought the case against the 60-year-old for his alleged part in the 1988 massacre of thousands of political prisoners in Iran in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq …

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• 28 July

  The Rafsanjani Diaries: Ayatollah Khamenei Has Had Heart Disease for 23 Years

  

  Iranwire – The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran has had heart disease for the best part of 25 years. The fact that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was diagnosed with this condition as far back as 1998 was only recently revealed in the latest instalment of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s memoirs. In his diary entry for May 30, 1998, which was …

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• 28 July

  Water Protests Roil Mideast, Alarm Region’s Governments

  

  VOA – When the civil war erupted in Syria a decade ago, some Middle East observers and climate scientists argued drought was one of the significant drivers of the conflict. Drought in the years preceding the war caused an agricultural collapse in parts of eastern and northern Syria, forcing rural families to migrate to cities in ever larger numbers and …

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• 28 July

  Iran protests gain momentum despite deadly crackdown

  

  Al-Monitor – On their 12th day, the rallies that initially began in the Iranian oil-rich but underdeveloped province of Khuzestan attracted growing solidarity from across the country. Videos have gone viral of demonstrations in Tehran, Karaj, Kermanshah, Isfahan and Bushehr, where protesters have been chanting slogans against Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with calls for an end to the clerical ruling establishment. …

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• 27 July

  Protests Spread In Iran As Anger Rises Over Water And Electricity Shortages, Virus Response

  

  RFL/RE – Angry protests against water shortages and deteriorating economic conditions in Iran continued to expand, a day after demonstrators in Tehran made a rare display of open discontent with the country’s Islamic leadership. Late on July 26, protesters in the city of Karaj, the capital of Alborz Province, chanted “Death to the dictator,” the same slogan that was heard …

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• 27 July

  The Truth about Iran Cannot be Untold

  

  nufdiran.org – For nearly two weeks, there have been large demonstrations in the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan that began over severe shortages in water supplies and quickly escalated into anti-regime protests. Other cities and townships in Iran followed suit in support of protests in Khuzestan. This is the natural course of all protests in Iran under the Islamic Republic. …

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• 27 July

  Anti-Government Protests Erupt in Tehran

  

  Iranwire – Protesters amassed in Jomhouri Avenue in central Tehran on Monday to chant anti-government slogans including “Shame, Khamenei! Let go of this country” and “Mullahs get lost”. Iranians on social media reported that the group marching down the shopping street at noon was partly enraged by the blackouts that have blighted the capital and cities across Iran for two months now. The long …

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• 27 July

  Tehran: Army Beds Repurposed as Hospitalized Covid-19 Patients Reach 10,000

  

  Iranwire – Ten thousand hospital beds in the Iranian capital are now occupied by patients with severe Covid-19 after a surge in cases prompted by to the Delta variant, the deputy director for Tehran’s Coronavirus Taskforce has said. Nader Tavakoli told IRNA on Tuesday that hospital beds earmarked for the armed forces and social security recipients would be co-opted for use by …

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• 27 July

  Iranwire Exclusive: Iran Vaccinating Lebanese Hezbollah

  

  Iranwire – IranWire understands that since last month, a major campaign has been underway to supply members of Lebanese Hezbollah with the Iranian-made CovIran-Barekat vaccine. This is happening while inside Iran, less than five percent of the population has received two doses of any brand of Covid-19 vaccine, while the country is grappling with a fifth wave of new infections …

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• 27 July

  Will Lebanon Fall into the Hands of Iran?

  

  gatestoneinstitute.org – There is growing concern among the Lebanese and other Arabs that Iran is planning to exploit the severe political, economic and financial crisis in Lebanon to complete its takeover of the country. Iran already has a political and military presence in Lebanon through its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah. The current crisis, however, is likely to facilitate Iran’s mission of …

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• 27 July

  At least 12 people killed in protests over water shortages in Iran

  

  Iran-HRM – At least 12 people were killed, many were injured and detained during the protests in southwestern Iran over lack of access to water.The protests which started from July 15 continued for 10 days in over 35 cities across the country. Several videos shared on social media show the state security forces using excessive force against demonstrators. Security forces …

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• 27 July

  No news of the two prisoners transferred to the intelligence detention center in Ahvaz

  

  Iran-HRM – Two weeks after the transfer of political prisoner Mehran Qarebaghi and an ordinary prisoner, Mohammad Hossein Ansarifar, from the Prison of Behbahan to the detention center of the Intelligence Department of Ahvaz, no news is available on them. The two prisoners were moved to the detention center of the Intelligence Department of Ahvaz at 3 a.m. on July …

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• 27 July

  More Strikes, Less Safety for Workers in Iran: Download Zamaneh Labor Rights Report

  

  RadioZamaneh – Zamaneh Media’s 17th Labor Rights Quarterly Report which covers labor issues of Iranian workers from April to June 2021 is now available for download. Zamaneh in this report covers labor protests, expulsion, flogging, and imprisonment of workers, issues that pensioners face, exploitation of oil and gas workers, municipal workers’ demands, protests of teachers, and sexual harassment at the …

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