A prominent Iranian lawyer has rejected the optimistic portrayal of Iran’s human rights situation offered to the United Nations earlier this week, RFE/RL’s Radio Farda reports. Last week, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the secretary-general of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that “Iran is a country with an [...]

Iran’s Revolutionary Court has sentenced human rights lawyer Mohammad Oliyaifard to a one year prison term under the charge of “propaganda against the system” for objecting to the execution of young offenders. Oliyaifard is well known for taking on pro bono child execution cases, and he is one of the lawyer’s who was assigned to [...]

by Tyler Shipley One of the first photographs I ever posed for was of my dad and me skating on our frozen backyard in Winnipeg. I wasn’t even a year old but I was already engaged in an activity that would frame my moral and ideological compass for the better part of three decades (and [...]

Russia said today Iran must cooperate more actively with the U.N. nuclear agency to convince the world its nuclear program is peaceful, and gave fresh signals the Kremlin may back sanctions. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) suggested on February 18 for the first time that Iran was actively pursuing a nuclear weapons capability now, [...]

Iranian state television said the first Iranian-built destroyer was launched today in a ceremony attended by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “The first domestically made destroyer Jamaran was launched this morning and joined Iran’s naval forces in the southern waters of the Persian Gulf,” state television IRIB reported. It did not give the location of [...]

International Transport Workers’ Federation Osanloo’s solitary confinement ended 18 February 2010 The ITF is glad to report that Mansour Osanloo has been removed from solitary confinement and returned to the general section of Iran’s Rajai Shahr prison. His removal earlier this week to a solitary cell, apparently as part of an increasing attempt to intimidate [...]

Reza Dehfolui a Tehran resident has been missing since his arrest on February 11th, and despite several trips to the Revolutionary Court as well as Evin Prison, his family has not been able to find information about his fate. According to a RAHANA reporter, Dehfouli suffers from epilepsy and his family remains extremely worried about [...]

3 Plant closures leave over 1500 EWUI (Iranian Electrical Workers Union) workers without work. 3 electrical equipment companies have closed their doors amid financial difficulties slashing between 1500 to 2000 industry jobs, says Mohammad Parsa the head of the Electrical Equipment Producers Union. According to Parsa, in recent years, the rest of Iran’s electrical equipment [...]

The news of the next court hearing comes as the 7 Baha’i leaders have now been detained for over 600 days. The last court hearing was held on February 7th, 2010, and like the first court session, it was entirely spent on reading out the lengthy indictment. According to CHRR, Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaleddin Khanjani, Afif [...]

Mehdi Amizesh, a child-labor activist, was arrested on January 30th, 2010 and taken to a solitary cell at Evin prison. According to a RAHANA reporter, the children’s rights activist was able to have a first face-to-face visit with his family, 20 days after his arrest. Amizesh was brutally arrested and severely beaten by the arresting [...]