Investigation under way after 32 people reported to have died in fire in Langarud, north of Tehran
Local media in Iran say 32 people have died in a fire at a drug rehabilitation centre in the north of the country, up from an earlier count of 27.
The death toll from the blaze at the centre in Langarud, a city in the northern Gilan province, was reported by the local ISNA news agency, quoting the province’s deputy governor, Mohammad Jalai.
Continue reading...Mahsa Yazdani convicted of blasphemy and ‘insulting supreme leader’ as Iran regime targets families of those killed in protests
A mother in Iran, whose son was reportedly killed after being shot repeatedly at close range by security forces, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison by an Iranian court after she demanded justice for her child on social media.
Mahsa Yazdani, whose 20-year-old son Mohammad Javad Zahedi was killed at an anti-regime protest in September 2022, was convicted on charges of blasphemy, incitement, insulting the supreme leader, and spreading anti-regime propaganda, according to human rights groups and family members. They say she will serve the first five years with no chance of parole.
Continue reading...Israel-Hamas conflict raises fears Iran might seek to encourage radical groups or terrorist activities in Britain
British counter-terrorism officers are monitoring closely if Iran will try to exploit the Israel-Hamas war for its own ends in the UK, amid wider anxieties that Tehran is an increasing security menace to dissidents and critics.
Concerns about Russia and China are well established, but Iran’s campaign of intimidation and harassment has been the most visible development in the domestic threat picture over the last 12 months.
Continue reading...The war in Gaza risks developing into a wider conflict, but for now, the actions seem to be more about messaging between Washington and Tehran
Over the last 10 days, US military bases in eastern Syria and western Iraq have been hit by rockets and drones. There have been 22 such attacks, although details are sketchy and some may not have been counted. More than 20 US service personnel have been injured, though not seriously, and a civilian contractor died of cardiac arrest.
Continue reading...Top MEP says Iranian woman’s death in police custody last year ‘triggered a movement that is making history’
Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who died in police custody in Iran last year, sparking worldwide protests against the country’s conservative Islamic theocracy, has been awarded the EU’s top human rights prize.
The award, named for the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, was created in 1988 to honour individuals or groups who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms. Sakharov, a Nobel peace prize laureate, died in 1989.
Continue reading...Hezbollah calls for ‘day of rage’ as both sides in war continue to trade blame for deadly explosion
Further furious rallies and protests are expected across the Middle East and north Africa on Wednesday after the blast at a Gaza hospital that left hundreds dead and injured.
Hamas has blamed Tuesday’s explosion at al-Ahli Arab hospital on an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli military says the hospital was hit by a rocket barrage launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which has denied responsibility.
Continue reading...UN says Israeli military has given 1.1 million Gaza residents 24 hours to move amid warnings it could cause ‘devastating humanitarian consequences’
Israel’s military has delivered sweeping evacuation orders for almost half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people ahead of an expected ground offensive aiming to eradicate the Hamas militant group after its unprecedented assault on Israel, UN officials said.
The order sent panic through civilians and aid workers already struggling under Israeli airstrikes and a blockade.
Continue reading...Majid Tavakoli, taken from his family in handcuffs, urges dissidents to ‘frankly analyse’ why opposition to the regime has successively failed
One of Iran’s foremost public intellectuals and critics of the Iranian regime was taken to prison in handcuffs on Saturday to start serving a five-year sentence.
Majid Tavakoli, who has a three-year-old child, was found guilty of spreading propaganda against the state. His dispatch to jail had been deferred for three weeks, but security officials came to take him away on Saturday, the day after another jailed Iranian human rights activist, Narges Mohammadi, was given the Nobel peace prize.
Continue reading...Mohammadi wins prize for her fight against oppression of women in Iran and to promote human rights for all
Narges Mohammadi, the most prominent of Iran’s jailed women’s rights advocates, has vowed to stay in the country and continue her activism after winning the 2023 Nobel peace prize.
“I will never stop striving for the realisation of democracy, freedom and equality,” she said in a prewritten statement released after the announcement. “Surely, the Nobel peace prize will make me more resilient, determined, hopeful and enthusiastic on this path, and it will accelerate my pace.”
Continue reading...Justice department claimed ownership of the ordnance on the grounds that they were being smuggled to Yemeni Houthi forces, breaching a UN embargo
The United States has supplied Ukraine with more than a million rounds of Iranian ammunition confiscated in the Gulf late last year.
The transfer of the ordnance followed a civil forfeiture case pursued by the justice department to gain ownership on the grounds that the bullets were seized as they were being smuggled to Yemeni Houthi forces in violation of a UN arms embargo.
Continue reading...Incident puts country back on edge a year after mass protests over death in custody of Mahsa Amini
The hospitalisation of a 16-year-old girl in Tehran has led to accusations by a rights group and activists that she was beaten into a coma by Iran’s feared “morality police”, putting the country back on edge a year after mass protests erupted over the treatment of women.
Footage of the incident showed a girl being carried off a train by other girls at a metro station and placed on the platform, where she stays still, apparently unconscious.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Kyiv says Iranian drones used by Russia in Ukraine have various European components
Iranian kamikaze drones used in the latest attacks on Ukrainian cities are filled with European components, according to a secret document sent by Kyiv to its western allies in which it appeals for long-range missiles to attack production sites in Russia, Iran and Syria.
In a 47-page document submitted by Ukraine’s government to the G7 governments in August, it is claimed there were more than 600 raids on cities using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) containing western technology in the previous three months.
Continue reading...White House hopes to secure nuclear cooperation deal with Riyadh as Chinese influence grows in Middle East
The Saudi crown prince has confirmed his country would seek to acquire a nuclear arsenal if Iran developed one, throwing fresh doubt on a possible US-Saudi nuclear cooperation deal currently under negotiation.
Joe Biden’s Democratic allies in the US Senate have warned his administration will face a tough battle for approval of a deal normalising relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia if it includes substantial nuclear cooperation with Riyadh, because of distrust of Saudi intentions.
Continue reading...Leaders seeking south Yemen’s independence say they have been sidelined from talks between Saudi Arabia and Houthi rebels
Leaders of the Southern Yemen independence movement have said they have been sidelined from the critical talks held in Riyadh between Saudi Arabia and Houthi rebels on the future of Yemen. They warned any peace deal cannot be imposed upon the south, saying possible Iranian control of the strategic Bab el-Mandeb waterways was at stake.
After an unprecedented five days of meetings with the Saudi defence minister, Khalid bin Salman, Houthi leaders returned on Tuesday to their capital, Sana’a, saying the talks were positive. It was the first official meeting between the Saudis and Houthi rebels since the Saudi military intervention in 2015 and reflects Saudi Arabia’s determination to end the conflict.
Continue reading...Protestors face 10-year jail terms under new hijab and chastity bill, which UN human rights body says is intended to suppress women into ‘total submission’
Iran’s parliament has approved a controversial new bill under which women face up to 10 years in prison if they continue to defy the country’s mandatory hijab rules.
As well as harsher penalties on women defying the strict dress code, the draft law also intends to identify those who “promote nudity [or] indecency” or “mock” the rules in a virtual or non-virtual space.
Continue reading...Free Nazanin campaign says Iran’s ‘hostage diplomacy’ is becoming normalised and calls for more coherent response
A UN inquiry into human rights in Iran has been asked to intervene in the growing detention of Iranian dual nationals and to identify the practice as unlawful state hostage-taking.
The inquiry, set up last November by the UN human rights council and being overseen by three lawyers, is due to report in March 2024. A submission from the Free Nazanin campaign, which worked for the release of the British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, warns the UN body that Iran is normalising the capture of dual nationals for use as diplomatic bargaining chips.
Continue reading...The failure to free US hostages seized at the US embassy in Tehran over 40 years ago consigned one Democratic president to a single term
For all the widespread fear of a second Donald Trump presidency, the Biden White House could be forgiven for being more preoccupied by the spectre of Jimmy Carter and the baleful images of his last year in office.
Carter was the last Democratic president to serve only a first term, brought low by the searing drama of the Tehran embassy siege, when Iranian revolutionaries had overrun the US diplomatic compound and held 52 American personnel captive for more than a year, heaping international humiliation on a military superpower when the cold war was still at its height.
Continue reading...Siamak Namazi was held in Iran’s notorious Evin prison for nearly eight years before the $6bn prisoner swap on Monday
An American citizen freed in a complex exchange deal after being imprisoned for nearly eight years in Iran has urged the Biden administration to launch a “gamechanging global endeavour” to end the Islamic regime’s longstanding practice of holding foreign nationals hostage.
Siamak Namazi, 51, was one of five US citizens released on Monday under the terms of an agreement that saw five Iranians facing charges in the United States granted clemency and Iran being given access to $6bn of previously frozen oil revenues.
Continue reading...Joe Biden announces return of detainees as US in turn frees five Iranians under controversial agreement
The US and Iran have freed five detainees each in a controversial prisoner swap involving the unfreezing by the Biden administration of $6bn (£4.8bn) of Iranian oil money.
In an elaborate and delicate diplomatic deal, months in the making, the five Americans – some held for nearly a decade – were taken from hotels in Tehran to a plane that flew to Qatar, before heading back to Washington.
Continue reading...US and Iran agree to free five people each under deal also involving transfer of $6bn in unfrozen Iranian assets
The US and Iran have freed five detainees each under an exchange agreement that also involves the transfer of $6bn (£4.8bn) in unfrozen Iranian assets from South Korea.
The following are the US citizens who were previously imprisoned in Iran:
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