Human Rights

Iran executed Ehsan Afrashteh on Wednesday on accusations of espionage and intelligence cooperation with Israel, the judiciary’s Mizan News reported.

Iranian poet Peyman Farahavar remains at risk of execution after the country’s Supreme Court rejected his request for judicial review, a rights group said on Tuesday.

Some Iranians say security bodies blocked their internet or SIM cards over alleged online activity against the Islamic Republic, then demanded pro-government posts, written pledges and guarantors to restore access, according to messages sent to Iran International.

Eight women political prisoners held in Tehran’s Evin Prison have been barred from meeting family members and lawyers following tighter security measures and pressure linked to collective protest activities inside the ward, according to information obtained by Iran International.

A prominent international academic organization focused on Iranian studies has urged the United Nations and the European Union to condemn US-Israeli attacks on universities and educational institutions in Iran during the March and April conflict.

Iran executed political prisoner Erfan Shakourzadeh after convicting him of cooperating with US intelligence and Israel’s Mossad, the judiciary-linked Mizan news agency reported on Monday, as rights groups warn of a sharp rise in executions tied to political charges.

Rights activists have raised renewed concerns over the health of prominent female political prisoners after Nobel Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi was transferred to a hospital in Tehran and reports emerged of worsening conditions for jailed activist Fatemeh Sepehri.

Iran’s security and judicial authorities have stepped up a crackdown on the Baha’i religious minority with arrests, home raids, and property seizures across several cities in the country, people familiar with the matter told Iran International.

Iranian activists are warning that a top aerospace graduate student sentenced to death on espionage charges may face imminent execution after being transferred from Tehran’s Evin prison to Ghezel Hesar prison, a facility associated with executions.

Many Iranians have been forced onto distrusted domestic apps after authorities cut global internet access, disrupting education and business while exposing users to slow speeds, censorship and surveillance fears.

Washington and the tech industry have the means to help Iranians: expand the tools that bypass censorship and raise the price Tehran pays for shutting the internet down.

At least 30 women detained during recent protests and a security crackdown linked to Iran’s conflict with the US and Israel are being held in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions at Vakilabad prison in northeast Mashhad, the rights group HRANA reported.

Iranian security forces arrested a doctor and an anesthesia nurse from a hospital in Najafabad, in central Iran, on Saturday on security-related charges, Iran International has learned.

Iran's security agents secretly buried the body of Iranian-Swedish citizen Kourosh Keyvani in the Khavaran area outside Tehran after he was executed in March on charge of spying for Israel, sources familiar with the matter told Iran International.

British couple Lindsay and Craig Foreman, sentenced to 10 years in prison on espionage charges in Iran, have been barred from visiting each other in Tehran’s Evin prison for three weeks, sources familiar with the matter told Iran International.

One thing never stops here: executions. War or no war, talks or no talks, crisis or calm, the machinery moves at its own pace: steady and unbroken, as if insulated from everything else.

The Islamic Republic executed another political prisoner in Urmia prison on Sunday, the judiciary reported, identifying him as Mehrab Abdollahzadeh.

The Canadian opposition has accused the government of bypassing its own rules after Iran International reported that an IRGC-linked Iranian football official was granted special permission to enter the country despite being inadmissible.