Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Jul. 06 – Three men accused of armed robbery were hanged in public this morning in the
north-eastern Iranian city of Mashad, the state-run news
agency reported.
The three, identified as Ali Adelzadeh, Arash Gholamian-Khorrasani, and Davoud Daliran, were accused of robbery.

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Jul. 6 – The top brass of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps vowed to defend the country’s newly-elected ultra-conservative President in the face of “smear campaigns”, calling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “a model Islamist”. “It’s necessary to declare the readiness of the green-uniform Guards and capable Bassijis … to support and cooperate with Your Excellency’s serving government,” Major General Rahim Safavi, Commandant General of the …

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Jul. 06 – Guards in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, where political prisoners are held, carried out a raid on cells in Ward 350 on Tuesday, injuring prisoners and confiscating personal belongings and written materials. The raid was carried out at 6 a.m., when prison guards led by an officer called Abbasi charged into the ward.

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Jul. 6 – Iran’s clergy-dominated
regime reacted angrily to Austria’s announcement on Tuesday that it was investigating claims that the newly-elected ultraconservative president was involved in the assassination of an Iranian Kurdish dissident. Foreign Ministry officials summoned Austria’s ambassador in Tehran to lodge a strongly-worded protest against the investigation.

Iran Focus: Tehran, Jul. 06 – Iran’s secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani will be replaced with a Revolutionary Guards brigadier general close to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to two influential hard-line dailies. Jomhouri Islami, once published by Ali Khamenei before he donned the mantle of the theocratic state’s spiritual leader, reported Tuesday that Rowhani was to be replaced with Ali Larijani, the Supreme Leader’s representative to the SNSC, the country’s top national security body.