AFP: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is to lead Muslim prayers next Friday, a year after his decisive sermon in support of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election.
Khamenei to lead prayers one year after Iran poll
Opposition steps up calls for protest in Iran capital
Iran Focus: Tehran, May 30 – For the third week running, activists in Tehran wrote political graffiti on walls and distributed leaflets in different districts in the capital ahead of the planned anti-government protests in June which the opposition has called for.
Powerful Iran cleric boosts pressure on regime
AFP: Opposition sympathiser and powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has ratcheted up the pressure on the Iranian regime ahead of the first anniversary of the disputed presidential election.
Fire at Iran oil well, three dead: report
Reuters: A fire at an Iranian oil well near the Iraq border killed three people on Saturday and injured 10 more, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported.
US forges ahead with bid for UN sanctions against Iran
AFP: President Barack Obama’s administration on Friday forged ahead with plans for UN Security Council sanctions against Iran without the involvement of Turkey and Brazil, senior US officials said.
Uranium enrichment not discussed in Iran deal: Brazil
AFP: Iran’s decision to enrich 20 percent its stock of uranium was never part of the negotiations behind the nuclear fuel swap deal Brazil and Turkey struck with Tehran last week, Brazil’s foreign minister said.
US House approves Iran sanction
AFP: The US House of Representatives on Friday voted to bar companies that do business with Iran’s energy sector or provide Tehran with sensitive weapons technology from getting US military contracts.
UN warns of dangers posed to Iranian dissidents in Iraq
Iran Focus: London, May 29 – As Iraqi politicians struggle to form a new government, the fate of 3,400 members of the main Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI), has been hanging in the balance, with Iran demanding that authorities in Baghdad clamp down on the group.
Exclusive: Millions allocated to recruiting Bassij militia
Iran Focus: Tehran, May 29 – Iran is spending millions of dollars and reorganising the paramilitary Bassij Force to attract new volunteers following low morale and widespread defections during last year’s anti-government nationwide uprising.
Tortured and raped for protesting in ‘Doghouse’ prison
Iran Focus: Tehran, May 28 – Inmates of a prison cellblock in Karaj known as the “Doghouse” are harassed and tortured; their hands, feet or jaws sometimes broken in brutal treatment by the head of the unit, where they are sent for protesting, Iran Focus has learnt.
