Iran Focus

Tehran, 26 Apr – Earlier in April, state media quoted Iranian Deputy Interior Minister Morteza Mir-Bagheri as saying that some 1,200 cities were suffering from 70 percent unemployment rates. Now, reports from inside the country indicate that in one village near the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, the effective unemployment rate is 100 percent.

One of the women of Zeineddin village told a Fars News Agency reporter who had travelled to their village: “There is no work! Everyone is unemployed! It is two years now that our men are unemployed and have no income. All men in the village are unemployed”.

Iran Focus

Tehran, 26 Apr – According to local reports, the head of internal affairs in Iran’s Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, Alborz Province (north-west of Tehran), also serves as an officially-sanctioned head of the prison’s narcotics gang.

Gohardasht is one of Iran’s largest and most high-security prisons. According to accounts by former inmates, political prisoners are transferred to Gohardasht Prison specifically to be tortured and persecuted due to their perceived threat to the regime.

Iran Focus

London, 25 Apr – Last Sunday, 24 April, marked the 26th anniversary of Professor Kazem Rajavi’s assassination. Professor Rajavi was a renowned defender of human rights in Iran and the elder brother of Massoud Rajavi, the leader of the organised Iranian opposition.

Iran Focus

London, 23 Apr – US President Barack Obama met with six envoys from the Gulf Cooperation Council last week to discuss regional security, in particular the new relationship with Iran.

The mood of the trip to Riyadh was less strained and the attendance greater than a similar gathering last year at Camp David when King Salman of Saudi Arabia and other gulf leaders skipped the talks. Obama re-affirmed what the two sides had in common, an enemy in ISIS and fluctuations in the global economy.

Iran Focus

London, 23 Apr – President Barack Obama visited Riyadh last Wednesday 20 April to meet with King Salman of Saudi Arabia. The two countries have been increasingly losing patience with each other recently as past actions catch up with them.