The Iranian Parliament’s Programming and Budget Commission has approved a plan to stop paying family benefits to families in the top three tiers of income. In recent years, the Iranian government implemented a plan to scrap government subsidies on staple foods and energy and instead began a program of paying out cash benefits to […]
Category: Sufi news
Iran’s environmental chief says “illegal” satellite towers coming down
The head of Iran’s Department of the Environment has announced that all “illegal” satellite reception towers designed to interfere with signals will be dismantled. ISNA reports that Massoumeh Ebtekar told reporters on Sunday October 20: “The new satellite reception towers in Tehran that have been erected without permission and all those that […]
Senior cleric speaks out against hanging convict again
Ayatollah Safi Golpayegani, a senior Iranian Shia cleric, has expressed his opposition to the proposed second hanging of a convict who did not die after his first hanging. A question was put to Ayatollah Golpayegani about the case of Alireza M., who was recently subjected to execution but later was found alive in the […]
More than 100 Kurds Arrested in Tehran
Iranian security forces in Tehran arrested more than 100 Yarsani activists today. The Yarsan or Ahl-e Haqq (People of Truth) faith dates back to the 14th century in Iranian Kurdistan and is estimated to have 2 million followers. Its followers are subject to systematic discrimination and oppression by the Iranian state. The activists were […]
List of human rights defenders behind bars
Human rights defenders, including lawyers, women’s rights defenders, trade unionists and activists working to protect ethnic and religious minorities, are in a very precarious situation in Iran.Among those detained are the following members of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC), one of the two FIDH member-organisations in Iran: Mohammad Seifzadeh, Abdolfattah Soltaniand Mohammad […]
Pressure against human rights defenders continues
While international relationships between Iran and western countries have been warming up, progress on human rights remains to be seen. Dozens of human rights defenders continue to serve prison sentences and dozens of others are awaiting court decisions in retaliation for their human rights work. The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, […]
Khomeini’s Granddaughter Quits Facebook Over War Joke
Heard the one about the ayatollah who wanted to marry war widows? It’s the type of joke that doesn’t get many laughs in Iran, even if told by the grandest ayatollah of them all — Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic. The 1980-88 war with Iraq remains a painful memory for Iranians, […]
Rohani urges Swiss to advance nuclear negotiations
Iranian President Hassan Rohani has received the new Swiss Ambassador to Tehran, Giulio Haas, expressing Iran’s will to reach a win-win situation in negotiations with world powers. The Iranian president added that the Swiss government could be instrumental in acting as more than just a host to the nuclear talks and he called on […]
Detained opposition leader’s wife appeals to president
Fatemeh Karroubi has appealed to the Iranian president to clarify the legal basis for the incarceration of her husband, Mehdi Karroubi, a reformist candidate who challenged the authenticity of the vote count in the 2009 presidential election. In a letter addressed to Hassan Rohani on October 19, Fatemeh Karroubi writes that the troubles her […]
Iranian violin master dies at age 93
Mahmoud Zolfonoon, the Iranian violin master, has passed away at the age of 93 in the United States. A student of Iranian music legends Ruhollah Khaleghi and Abolhassan Saba, Zolfonoon studied at Iran’s National Conservatory of Music. In the 1940s, he joined National Radio Broadcasting and soon after the National Music Orchestra. Later, he […]