By Pooya Stone
Several fuel vessels were temporarily arrested in Singapore towards the end of last month on suspicion of breaching US sanctions on Iran.
The reports of these arrests come as the United States continues to maintain pressure on the belligerent Iranian regime. The Trump administration has explained that it is cutting the regime off from one of its biggest sources of revenue because it wants to isolate the regime faced with its belligerence in the region and beyond.
By Jubin Katiraie
This week, people in several Iranian cities held protests and strikes, expressing their discontent and anger over the Iranian government’s policies, poor economic conditions, and the authorities’ disregards for their demands.
By Pooya Stone
According to Iranian human rights sources, in July, the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) opened fire on porters, killing six and wounding 19 others in Iran’s border areas.
The report also states that one porter was killed in a car accident and another was injured by a natural disaster.
By Jubin Katiraie
The Iranian economy is in a much more precarious situation than was predicted just a few months ago, according to political scientist Dr Majid Rafizadeh.
He explained that in April, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that inflation in Iran would reach 40%, while the World Bank estimated in June that Iran’s gross domestic product (GDP) would drop by 4.5% in 2019, which was 0.9% worse than its January prediction. However, Rafizadeh cited data from the Statistical Centre of Iran that paints a bleaker picture, which inflation reaching a huge 50%. This is even worse in rural areas, where inflation has reached 60%, and for food items, given that the cost of meat has risen by 95%.
By Pooya Stone
A Tehran Revolutionary Court has upheld a 30-year prison sentence, as well as 111 lashes, against human rights lawyer Amirsalar Davoudi, who has defended several political activists.
Davoudi’s lawyer Mostafa Turk Hamedani tweeted the news on July 30.
By Jubin Katiraie
Amnesty International has released a statement condemning the flogging of Kurdish singer and prisoner of conscience Peyman Mirzazadeh, who is currently being held in Urmia prison in Iran, saying that the 100-lash sentence shows the “shocking brutality” of Iran’s justice system.
By Pooya Stone
The US sanctioned Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Wednesday, describing him as the “propaganda arm” of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who hinted at potential sanctions last month, said: “Javad Zarif implements the reckless agenda of Iran’s supreme leader and is the regime’s primary spokesperson around the world.”
By Jubin Katiraie
Four female political prisoners were brutally attacked by regular inmates, who were incited by prison officials, in Qarchak Prison, also known as Shahr-e Ray Prison, in Iran, on Monday, July 29 at about 7 pm.
One of the prisoners who attacked Yasaman Ariani, Neda Naji, Atefeh Rangriz, and Sepideh Qolian, had recently been released from a mental hospital and was referred to in some reports as “deranged”.
By Pooya Stone
Iranian rail workers have continued their strike action this week by blocking the tracks that link the port of Bandar Abbas in Hormozgan Province by the Persian Gulf to the capital Tehran for two consecutive days on Monday and Tuesday.
The state-run ILNA news agency said that rail workers are on strike to protest that their wages have not been paid in three months.
By Jubin Katiraie
A water official in Sistan and Baluchestan Province said yesterday that over half of the villages in the poverty-stricken southeastern province lacked water supply networks.
Abdolahad Rigi, the head of the Sistan and Baluchestan Rural Water and Sewage Company, told the semi-official ILNA News Agency that 2,868 villages in the province, out of a total of 5,594, did not have water supply networks.
