Twitter channel @DelaraDarabi is reporting that Delara Darabi was hanged early this morning at Iran’s Rasht prison. Delara was condemned to death for an alleged crime committed when she was 17 and spent over five years on death row.
Despite the fact that Iran has signed two international agreements forbidding capital punishment for crimes committed [...]

So much for that “Islamic solidarity” stuff.
Tehran has canceled the Islamic Solidarity Games after Saudi Arabia asked Iran to remove the term Persian Gulf from game medals and brochures.
The Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation (ISSF) Secretary General Saleh Gazdar and Technical Committee Chairman Mohammad Bashir Al-Trabosli said in a Tehran meeting that Arab states would only [...]

In an interview published in Macleans, Hossain Ali Ramoz, executive director of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission, insists that most Afghan Shia Muslims do not support the controversial law obligating a wife to “fulfill the sexual desires of her husband”.
Afghanistan’s Shias, most of whom belong to the Hazara ethnic group, are typically among the most [...]

Delara Darabi is 22 years old and has been on Iran’s death row for almost six years. In 2003, she confessed to killing someone to protect her boyfriend, who was 19 at the time and told her she would not face the death penalty because she was under 18. She has since retracted [...]

In a follow-up to this story, Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad (30) and Maryam Rustampoor (27), the two Christian women recently arrested by Iranian security agents, have now been in custody for 28 days and are reportedly suffering poor health.
Assist News Service has received a press release from Elam Ministries about their condition.
“They are in a cell [...]

Farsi Christian News Network (FCNN) reports that two Iranian Christian women were arrested and imprisoned earlier this month solely because of their faith.
On March 5th 2009, two Iranian Christian women, Miss Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad (30), and Miss Maryam Rustampoor (27), were arrested by the Iranian security forces. Their only crime is that they are committed [...]

Farsi Christian News Network is reporting that two Christians from Isfahar, Iran, involved in internet evangelism and blogging were taken into custody last month.  A man masquerading as a Christian pastor deceived them into thinking they were going to a secret house church meeting.
[A] 30 years old Christian man by the name of Mazaher R., [...]

Iran goes country.
The World Academy of Arts, Literature & Media recently named Iranian band Kiosk Best Blues Band of 2008.
To me, except for the Farsi lyrics, Kiosk looks and sounds like an American alt-country band.
KIOSK is often noted for its biting critical social and
 political, but humorous lyrics.
I’ll just have to take your word on [...]

Stephan Hachemi has initiated a civil lawsuit before the Quebec High Court against the government of Iran in the death of his mother, photojournalist Zahra Kazemi. While visiting Tehran in June 2003, Ms Kazemi, who held dual Canadian and Iranian citizenship, was arrested, beaten, and died in custody. Despite repeated assurances by Iranian [...]

Since last June, two internationally renowned doctors have been held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison on charges of communicating with an “enemy government”. At trial yesterday, the prosecutor levied additional charges that he refused to specify, making a cogent defence impossible.
The Iranian government’s December 31 trial of Dr. Arash Alaei and Dr. Kamiar Alaei [...]

The financial crisis and attendant oil crash are wreaking havoc with the economies of oil states. Despite falling revenues, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad persists in subsidising energy costs for peasants and urban poor who form his support base.
Pakistan is even worse shape, largely because it had no oil exports to start with. Its current [...]

No explanation has been given for the arrest of online journalist and blogger Shahnaz Gholami in Tehran on 9 November. She has been arrested and jailed several times in the past for her activities as a women’s rights activist and journalist. Most recently, on 20 September she was sentenced to six months [...]

An Iranian-born blogger who holds dual citizenship with Canada has been arrested in Tehran and charged with spying for Israel.  Hossein Derakhshan, known as the godfather of the Iranian blogosphere (or “Blogfather”), returned to his homeland about three weeks ago.
A prominent Iranian blogger, nicknamed the Blogfather for spawning Iran’s spectacular blogging revolution, has been arrested [...]

Iran is seriously ticked off with Canada. That just breaks my heart.
Iran’s foreign ministry sources said on Tuesday that the Islamic Republic should respond to the Canadian-sponsored UN resolution criticizing Iran’s so-called violation of human rights ‘fittingly’.
“Canada has been deprived of positive relations with the Islamic Republic as a result of its anti-Iran resolution [...]

So says the head honcho of some Iranian student organisation:
The head of Iran’s student Basij organization, Reza Saraj, has said that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama learned his “Yes, we can” slogan from Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
Mr Saraj also says “the decision makers and power centres” in the United States had Obama elected in order to [...]