Iran said that Egyptians have achieved a “great victory” in the ousting of Hosni Mubarak—as Iranian security forces rounded up opposition leaders who had called for a day of protest.
As in the Venezuela crisis, Donald Trump, the great enthusiast for dictators, is making a cynical pretense of concern for democracy in Iran. Fortunately, his latest bit of exploitation of the Iranian protesters has blown up in his face. Noting the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, he issued a tweet featuring a meme with an image of a student protester from the 2017 anti-austerity uprising and the words: "40 years of corruption. 40 years of repression. 40 years of terror. The regime in Iran has produced only #40YearsofFailure." Now, the courageous photographer who snapped the image at the University of Tehran in December 2017, Yalda Moayeri, comes forward to express her outrage at its co-optation by Trump. Alas, Masih Alinejad, the Iranian-American feminist who last week met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, seems not to get how she is endangering opposition activists in Iran, allowing the regime to paint them as pawns of imperialism. (Image via @realDonaldTrump)
Canadian-Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, credited with starting the blogging movement in Iran, faces the death penalty over his work, warns Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.
The International Campaign for Human Right in Iran called for the immediate release of prominent human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was detained this week at Tehran’s Evin prison.
Jeffrey Goldberg in a story in The Atlantic, “The Point of No Return,” claims that Israel will attack Iran by the end of the year. But readers may recall that there was a flurry of such predictions last year too.
At the unveiling of a new bomber, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran “should seek the ability to make pre-emptive strikes against a perceived threat,” while also saying it would “never strike first.”
Iranian political prisoners have an issued an appeal for support of the demands of 17 hunger strikers at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, who have refused food for the past two weeks.
Rallies have been held in London, Paris, New York, and other cities around the world to support Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by the Islamic Republic for adultery.
The Jundallah militant organization claimed responsibility for coordinated suicide blasts that killed at least 27 during an evening prayer ceremony at the Grand Mosque in Zahedan.
Saeed Torabian, a board member of the Tehran bus drivers’ union (Vahed Syndicate), was arrested by Iranian security forces and is being held incommunicado, whereabouts unknown.
Iran's government has unleashed a wave of arrests in western Khuzestan province since the Sept. 22 deadly attack on a military parade in the city of Ahwaz, with sweeps targetting dissidents, journalists, intellectuals, human rights activists and members of the Ahwazi Arab minority generally. Some 1,000 Ahwazis have been detained in the weeks since the attack, with at least 600 still being detained. Many of the detained have been taken to unknown destinations, with their families denied any contact or even information on their whereabouts. Local rights groups report that security forces have raided activists' homes, and the detained include women and the elderly. Karim Dahimi, an Ahwazi human rights worker based in London, said that the Iranian government has been systematically detaining Ahwazi activists in clandestine torture facilities known as "black sites." Ahwazi Arabs in the international diaspora have been holding demonstrations at Iranian consulates demanding an end to the regime's anti-Arab racism and repression (Image: The Herald Report)
Reports in the London Times and Israeli press say Israel is to deploy three submarines armed with nuclear-equipped cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf.
