The Latest - Iran - Human Rights
UN Extends Mandate of Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran
The UN Human Rights Council last week passed a resolution extending the mandate of the special rapporteur on human rights in Iran by one year. The measure, which cleared the global body by a vote of 21 to 7 with 19 countries abstaining, reflects a recognition that Tehran’s domestic repression constitutes an ongoing problem. At the same time, the large number of abstentions and opposing votes suggests that a significant percentage of the international community remains willing to overlook or deny the reality of Iran’s abysmal record on human rights. more...
Iran Protests Revive Bitter US Political Divides
President Donald Trump blamed former president Barack Obama Tuesday for "foolishly" giving Iranian leadership money as part of the 2015 nuclear agreement negotiated by his administration, tweeting a claim the funds "went into terrorism and into their pockets." more...
Trump Reiterates Support for Iranian Protesters, but Also Criticizes Obama
President Trump has given full-throated support to the antigovernment protesters in Iran. But the rising tide of unrest there complicates an already vexing decision for him: whether he should rip up the nuclear deal struck by President Barack Obama. more...
Iran’s Repression of Foreign Journalists Intensifies
Iran’s targeting of foreign journalists has intensified. In recent weeks and months, the regime has conducted cyber attacks against Iranian journalists abroad, launched a criminal investigation of BBC Persian, and falsely charged a British-Iranian for conspiring against the regime by teaching journalism. Tehran’s conduct reflects its longstanding fear that journalists constitute Western agents who seek to infiltrate the country with foreign ideologies contrary to Shiite Islam. more...
New UN Report Highlights Iran’s Continued Human Rights Abuses
Iran’s repression of its own people has continued largely unabated, the United Nations indicated in a new report presented to the UN General Assembly last week. The semi-annual publication, authored by Asma Jahangir, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, paints a grim portrait of an Islamist regime committed to the suppression of dissent that contradicts its radical ideology. more...
Iranian opposition leader ends hunger strike after government agrees to relax house arrest
An Iranian opposition leader living under house arrest has ended his hunger strike after authorities agreed to lift some restrictions and consider his demand for a public trial, a family member said Thursday. The decision marked a potentially rare concession from a government generally resistant to public pressure. more...
Hungary could save Iranian Christian actress facing deportation from Sweden
An Iranian Christian celebrity who is at the risk of deportation from Sweden to Iran could be saved from prison, abuse, and possibly death, by the Hungarian government, which has announced that it is ready to offer refugee status to her. more...
Top Iran-watchers comment on Rouhani’s track record and his relations with the West
With Hassan Rouhani starting his second term as Iran's president, VOA Persian remembers that three years ago, American observers Reuel Mark Gerecht and Ali Alfoneh wrote a political portrait of Hassan Rouhani titled "The Man and the Myth: The many faces of Hassan Rouhani" where they traced the life of Hassan Fereydoun - from his birth in Sorkheh in Semnan Province to his theology studies at Alavi School in Qom to his long political career and climb through the Islamic Republic's top hierarchy culminating in becoming Iran's president. more...
Iranian Christian convert released from prison
Maryam Naghash Zargaran, an Iranian Muslim who converted to Christianity, has been released from a Tehran prison. more...
Iran Denied Christian Prisoner Vital Medical Care
Iranian authorities released Maryam Naghash Zargaran, an Iranian Christian, from prison after she served a four year sentence for "security violations." more...
Trump Wanted to Find Iran Non-Compliant With Nuclear but Was Talked out of It
Donald Trump wanted to declare Iran as noncompliant with the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal but was talked out of it by national security aides shortly ahead of the midnight deadline, according to administration officials. more...
Tehran Sentences U.S. Hostage to 10 Years in Prison
Tehran has sentenced another Western national to a lengthy prison term on spurious espionage charges. The incarceration of Xiyue Wang, a Chinese-American graduate student at Princeton University first arrested last summer, not only reflects Iran’s conspiratorial fears of Western infiltration, but also marks a likely effort to extort Washington for further concessions. more...
The John Batchelor Show
Trump administration sanctions Iran but continues the Iran deal. FDD senior Iran analyst Behnam Ben Taleblu discusses these developments. more...
With U.S. scholar’s conviction, power struggle escalates between Iran’s president and hard-liners
A high-stakes power struggle between Iran’s moderate president and his hard-line opponents in the judiciary appeared to escalate with the arrest of the president’s brother and the conviction of an American student for espionage this weekend — rulings that seemed timed to embarrass the Iranian leader at home and abroad. more...
The Ideological Battleground of Iran’s Internet
A leading advocate for internet freedom recently began his fifth hunger strike in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison. The incarceration of Nizar Zakka, a U.S. permanent resident, reflects Tehran’s ongoing efforts to restrict cyber space, which the regime regards as a threat not merely to its survival, but also to the Islamic character of the people it rules. more...
Iran’s High Rate of Executions Continues After Rouhani’s Re-Election
Iran has executed at least 20 people since the re-election of President Hassan Rouhani on May 19, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies reported Wednesday. more...
The Ideological Crucible of Iran’s Hunger Strikes
Hunger strikes in Iranian prisons are hardly new. But the international attention that accompanied one recent strike has exposed rare cracks in the regime’s theocratic armor, and offers a key lesson for the United States. By publicly highlighting the plight of Iran’s hunger strikers, Washington can weaken Tehran’s resolve to resist their demands. more...
Trump must challenge Iran’s ongoing human rights abuses
“The real war” with the West, Iran’s supreme leader declared in a recent speech, “is a cultural war.” It unfolds not on Middle East battlefields, but on the “many television and internet networks which are busy diverting the hearts and minds of our youth away from religion, our sacred beliefs, morality, modesty and the like.” more...
Rouhani, the Deceiver
In two months’ time — on May 19, to be exact — Iran will hold presidential elections. As things currently stand, odds are that the incumbent, Hassan Rouhani, will win a second term. more...
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