Iran Focus
London, 14 Dec – Last month, Iranian hackers attempted to break into personal emails of American officials tasked with enforcing the recently reimposed sanctions, according to The Associated Press.
Data gathered by London-based cybersecurity group Certfa tracked a hacking group nicknamed Charming Kitten. The AP believes that the group spent the past month trying to break into the private emails of more than a dozen U.S. Treasury officials.
Iran Focus
London, 14 Dec – Niloufar Bayani was a student of biology at McGill university before she was sentenced to jail in Iran. Bayani graduated in 2009 and later worked for the United Nations Environment Programme.
Nearly a year ago, when she went to Iran to do environmental work, the former resident of Montreal and Toronto was arrested and accused of espionage, and has been in Evin prison, outside Tehran, since then.
Iran Focus
London, 13 Dec – More Iranians are living in poverty thanks to a spiralling economic situation and their monthly income not rising to meet inflation, according to the Iranian parliament’s research centre.
The poverty line for a family of four living in Tehran rose to a monthly income of 27 million rials in the second quarter of the Iranian year (June to September), according to the report released by the parliamentary researchers on Tuesday. This is a 22% rise compared with the same quarter in 2017.
Iran Focus
London, 13 Dec – It’s been nearly one year since the widespread protests against dictatorship broke out in Iran and the government has failed to quell the people’s legitimate anger, despite increased repression and mass illegitimate arrests.
In fact, 2018 has seen thousands of protests and hundreds of strikes from every sector of Iranian society, bringing together factory workers, teachers, truck drivers, and many more industries together to fight low or unpaid wages, poor working conditions and spiralling inflation. Here, we’ll look at some of the biggest strikes.
Iran Focus
London, 12 Dec – Although the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned in mid-December last year that mass protests might occur, and dispatched special patrols of Basij forces in an attempt to suppress popular dissent, protests swept across the country later that month. The nationwide uprising tore down the wall of oppression.
Iran Focus
London, 12 Dec – Eleven per cent more people in Tehran and the surrounding areas have fallen below the poverty line since spring 2018, due to a sharp depreciation in the value of Iran’s currency (the rial), according to the Parliament Research Center of the Iranian legislature.
Iran Focus
London, 11 Dec – According to Iran News Wire, sources report that the families of labor activist Esmail Bakhshi, and civil rights activist Sepideh Ghelian, were informed that Mr. Bakhshi and Ms. Ghelian were beaten and mistreated during a family visit last Sunday.
The two Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Factory labor representatives were detained 22 days ago on November 18th, after protests by the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Factory workers in Shush.
Iran Focus
London, 11 Dec – The Iranian Parliament’s Research Center recently published a new report that examines absolute poverty in Iran’s provinces, and provides insight into this growing crisis.
This issue has been largely ignored by Islamic Republic officials, who don’t wish to speak to the results of “absolute” or “extreme” poverty, which is not just an adjective describing the severity of the situation — it has a defined meaning, as noted in a report published by the United Nations in 1995. “Absolute poverty is a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to social services.”
Iran Focus
London, 11 Dec – A recent protest outside the offices of the commission in Lebanon by the so-called Sabaa Party is sparking controversy, with many believing it to be another attempt by the Iran-backed Hezbollah to create chaos in the country and further frustrate attempts to form a government.
Iran Focus
London, 10 Dec – Lebanon has still not been able to form a government, thanks to the obstructionist efforts of Iran-backed Hezbollah, despite the fact that Hezbollah holds the majority of the seats. Hezbollah wants to prevent the formation of the Lebanese government in order to better serve their Iranian masters who want to leave the country, and by extension the Middle East in a state of limbo.
