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 – Struan Stevenson, the President of the Brussels-based European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA) issued a statement on Sunday 24 April calling for the dismissal of Iranian “agents and proxies” from the Iraqi government and security apparatus. Stevenson also backed the idea of holding early elections in Iraq under United Nations supervision; to prevent intervention and influence from the Iranian government.
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
Tehran, 24 Apr – According to reports from inside Iran, imprisoned teacher Mahmoud Beheshti Langaroudi, a former secretary general and current speaker of Iran’s teachers union, issued a statement from Evin Prison (North of Tehran) saying that he began a hunger strike on 20 April.
Iran Focus
London, 23 Apr – Human rights activist and member of the Iranian resistance Farideh Karimi has criticised President Hassan Rouhani’s decision to introduce 7,000 morality police onto the streets of Iran.
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
Tehran, 23 Apr – Iran’s economy is set to receive a boost as economic sanctions are lifted. Following the agreement with the P5+1 billions of dollars are set to circulate through Iran in the coming months. But decades of sanctions and crony-capitalism have left the Iranian labour market in poor shape.
Iran Focus
Tehran, 23 Apr – Two family members of members of the main Iranian opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI or MEK) have been arrested for marking the fifth anniversary of the deaths of their relatives at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. Azam Madadzadeh, the sister of the two PMOI members killed, and her husband Karim Kohandel were arrested in a raid on their home at noon on 7 April.
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.
Iran Focus
Tehran, 23 Apr – At least 11 persons who were members of either Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) or Iran’s regular army, killed in Syria in the recent days, have been buried in various Iranian cities.
The state run ISNA news agency reported on Wednesday that the public relations section of the IRGC in the central Iranian Qom Province had issued a statement announcing the burial of seven Afghan mercenaries who were killed in Syria. Their names were given as Habib Rezaie, Mehdi Hosseini, Abdolhakim Rasouli, Hossein Hosseini, Mohammadjavad Askari, Khodabakhsh Mohammadi, and Hassan Reza Rastegari. They were all members of the Fatemiyoun Division of the Quds Force, the foreign operations division of the IRGC.
