Death Sentence Against Spiritual Center Founder Rejected
Family Hopes for Taheri’s Release at End of Prison Term in 2016 With the lifting of the death sentence against spiritual leader ...
December 24, 2015
Popular Iranian Poet Arrested for Third Time amidst Hardline Crackdown against Artistic Community
The well-known Iranian poet Mohamadreza Haj Rostambegloo was released on bail from Karaj’s Central Prison last week, following his third arrest by the authorities in Iran in ...
December 24, 2015
Kurdish News Editor Released on Bail after 60 Days in Prison
Hassan Sheikh Aghaei, the editor of a Kurdish-Persian news site, was released on two billion rials (about $67,000) bail on December 6, 2015, after 60 days in detention ...
December 21, 2015
No Bail Set or Appeals Court Date as Child Rights Activist Waits in Prison
Imprisoned children’s rights activist Omid Alishenas has been refused bail while waiting for the Appeals Court to hear his case. “Seven months have passed since Omid ...
December 21, 2015
Rouhani and Judiciary Clash over Ban on Publishing Images of Former President Khatami
The Rouhani administration and the hardline-dominated Judiciary in Iran are engaged in an increasingly direct confrontation over the ability of Iranian media to publish images of ...
December 18, 2015
H.R. 158: Why are the New Visa Restrictions so Wrong and Un-American?
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December 16, 2015
After 20-Day Hunger Strike, Imprisoned Teacher Activist Released on Temporary Medical Leave
The teachers’ union activist Mahmoud Beheshti Langroudi was allowed to leave Evin prison on December 16, 2015, on temporary medical leave after a 20-day hunger ...
December 12, 2015
Underground Music Distributors Await Appeal Decision for Six Years in Prison
Two musicians and a filmmaker who were jointly sentenced to six years in prison and fined 200 million rials (about $6,650) each for “insulting the sacred” ...
December 11, 2015
Cartoon 131: Choice, Force, and Infiltration
After nearly four decades of tight control on state media such as the Iranian radio and television programming, Friday prayer pulpits, educational curriculum, unabated censorship of ...
December 11, 2015
Commentary: Khamenei’s New Letter to Western Youth is Case Study in Hypocrisy
Seyed Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has written a letter addressed to youths in Western countries and, as he did in an earlier similar letter, ...
December 11, 2015
Elections for Assembly of Experts Puts Spotlight on Future of Leadership in Iran
Although Iran’s Assembly of Experts has the power to select or depose the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, it has never been seen as an ...
December 11, 2015
Mother Puts All Hope in Appeals Court to Free Son
“How can a young man who worked hard for Rouhani’s presidential campaign, ‘wage propaganda’ and ‘act against the state’?” That is ...
December 10, 2015
Ground Shifts as 70 MPs in Iran Introduce Bill to End Executions for Drug Crimes
More than 70 Members of the Iranian Parliament have presented a bill that, if ratified by the full legislature and approved by the Council of Guardians ...
December 10, 2015
Arrested Journalists Held Incommunicado for Over a Month while Officials Make Baseless Claims
More than a month after his arrest, the prominent reformist journalist Issa Saharkhiz has not contacted his family and judicial authorities have ...
December 8, 2015
Students Plead with Rouhani to Release Political Prisoners
President Hassan Rouhani and other senior government officials were met with students expressing frustration over the continuing repression in Iran and demanding the ...
December 4, 2015
Ninety Journalists Call for Release of Four Arrested Colleagues
Ninety Iranian journalists have signed a statement calling for the release of four of their colleagues arrested a month ago by Iran’s Revolutionary ...
December 4, 2015
Kurdish Filmmaker’s Appeal Request Accepted; Colleagues Voice Support
Documentary filmmaker Keyvan Karimi’s request for an appeal against a six-year prison sentence for “insulting the sacred” has been accepted, ...
December 2, 2015
Tehran Symphony Orchestra Leaves Stage rather than Bow to Demand to Ban Female Members
The Tehran Symphony Orchestra cancelled a performance that had been planned for the closing ceremony of an international wrestling event on November 29, ...
December 1, 2015
Five Prison Inmates on Hunger Strike to Protest Knife Attack against Two Political Prisoners
Prison Officials Refuse to Remove Attackers from Ward Two political prisoners, Saeed Madani and ...
December 1, 2015
Rouhani Administration Continues Ban on Popular Musician
Hossein Zaman Singer-songwriter Hossein Zaman, who has been banned from performing for nearly ten years and ...
December 1, 2015
Imprisoned Children’s Rights Activist Denied Bail
Saeed Shirzad Saeed Shirzad, a children’s rights activist sentenced to five years in prison, has been ...
November 30, 2015
Untreated Kidney Stones Sends Imprisoned Physicist Omid Kokabee to Hospital
Imprisoned physicist Omid Kokabee was transferred to Taleghani Hospital in Tehran on November 24, 2015, suffering from severe kidney stones, a source told ...
November 30, 2015
Cartoon 130: Infiltration
Hardliners in Iran’s Parliament, Judiciary, and Revolutionary Guards are intensifying a broad crackdown on supporters of human rights and free elections, in a campaign underpinned ...
November 25, 2015
Political Prisoner’s Health Deteriorating as His Hunger Strike Enters Fourth Week
The political prisoner Majid Azarpey is in extremely poor health since beginning a wet hunger strike (refusing solid foods) in Evin Prison on ...
November 24, 2015
Women’s Futsal Team Captain Allowed to Travel to World Championship Only after Judiciary Gives Consent
Husband’s Refusal to Give Consent Kept Her Banned from Leaving Country The captain of the Iranian women’s national Futsal team, ...