March 16, 2010 by Martin Fletcher Iran’s Supreme Leader is seeking to ban the Iranian equivalent of Bonfire Night in case the opposition turns it into another protest against his regime. “Charshanbeh Suri [Red Wednesday] has no Sharia basis and causes much harm and corruption and should be avoided altogether,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared, in [...]

By NAZILA FATHI Iranian authorities announced death penalties on Monday for six people arrested during protests in December, in what appeared to be strong warning to the opposition ahead of a traditional annual celebration. The annual tradition, the Feast of Fire, goes backs thousands of years to Zoroastrian times and has been banned in Iran [...]

TEHRAN (AFP) — A group of hardliners besieged the Tehran home of opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi, shouting death slogans and calling for him to be put on trial, reports said on Monday. The Fars news agency identified the small but vocal crowd which gathered on Sunday outside the building where Karroubi lives as “students and [...]

By Hadi Ghaemi and Aaron Rhodes The new session of the U.N. Human Rights Council began on March 1. A failure of the world’s most influential human rights body to deal with the abuse of human rights in Iran will be interpreted by Tehran as a green light for the government’s brutal policies that could result in [...]

By Golnaz Esfandiari The Iranian authorities in recent weeks have begun to release some of the former officials, activists, and intellectuals detained in last year’s post-election unrest. Those released in recent days include former Deputy Interior Minister Mostafa Tajzadeh, activist Abdollah Momeni, and student leader Mehdi Arabshahi. Those detainees have been released under varying conditions. [...]

Iran’s supreme leader has condemned a fire festival traditionally held in the days leading up to the country’s New Year’s celebrations in March. The Chahar Shanbe Soori festival, in which celebrants traditionally light bonfires and leap over them, is linked to the ancient Zoroastrian religion — which predates the seventh-century introduction of Islam in the [...]

Divorce rate is rising rapidly in Iran and people are getting married much later in life, this has become an issue that is starting to worry officials in Iran. Iran’s Youth Organisation have launched a series of courses, with advice on everything from sex to living happily after. The founders call it a step towards [...]

Iran has temporarily released an Iranian-American scholar serving prison time on an espionage conviction so he can spend the Iranian New Year holiday with his family, officials said Sunday. Kian Tajbakhsh, a social scientist and urban planner, was the only American detained in the crackdown that crushed giant street protests by hundreds of thousands of [...]

Shiva Nazar Ahari’s family writes to Tehran Prosecutor: “Release Shiva on the eve of Norooz” Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR)– 80 days have passed since human rights activist Shiva Nazar Ahari was arrested, and her family is still awaiting her release. Shiva Nazar Ahari was previously arrested by security forces at her workplace on [...]