Stories from and

Could Using a Cell Phone in Iran Put You in Business with “Terrorists”?

  11 September 2015

Could using a cell phone in Iran entangle you with ”terrorists”? This might be the case if Iran's Revolutionary Guards who control the country's telecommunications monopoly are designated as “terrorists”. This is a possibility being discussed as U.S. politicians and lawmakers consider how stringently to impose economic sanctions on Iran once the sanctions related to the...

Protesters Rally Against Iranian Nuclear Deal in Times Square

  23 July 2015

This past Wednesday a rally gathered in New York's Time Square to oppose the nuclear deal reached between Iran and the P5+1 countries (the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and China). The effort was meant to send a message to the U.S. congress to veto the deal. The...

New Report Details Unanimous Support Amongst Iran's Civil Society for the Iran Deal

  23 June 2015

  Global Voices collaborators the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran released a newly written report yesterday entitled “High Hopes, Tempered Expectations: Views from Iran on the Nuclear Negotiations.” The report engaged with 28 members of Iranian civil society including former members of the Iranian Parliament, journalists, academics, lawyers,...

Iran's Evin Prison to Become a Park

  18 May 2015

This post first appeared on iranhumanrights.org and is published here in collaboration with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.  Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said last week that the Tehran Municipality is prepared to enter negotiations with the Iranian Judiciary to convert the Evin Prison complex in northwestern Tehran into a...

Amid “Intelligent” Censorship Discussions, Iran Affirms Facebook Will Remain Blocked

Advox  15 May 2015

Discussions regarding the implementation of “intelligent” filtering have proliferated Internet policy discussions within Iran. “Intelligent” filtering is a process whereby they filter select content on a social media platform, rather than the entire site. Our recent research covered the extent of this program on Instagram. In response to “intelligent’ filtering...

Khamenei's #Letter4U Bots Still Active Four Months After Its Launch

  14 May 2015

On January 21, during the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei penned an open letter to the 'youth in Europe and North America' defending Islam, and the Western world's skewed reception of the religion. He also started tweeting the sentiments of the letter on his @khamenei_ir twitter account, starting the hashtag #Letter4U. A closer look of this hashtag indicates it remains active through bots, which are still crawling through Twitter four months after the launch of the campaign.

Iran's Foreign Minister Responds to Letter from Republican Senators

  11 March 2015

Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif penned a response to the letter 47 Republican U.S. Senators sent to Iranian leaders. The letter was in opposition to nuclear negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.  Zarif was quick to pen the response, and tweet back to the Republican Senator Tom Cotton who...

Iranian Facebook User Sentenced to Death

  26 November 2014

Soheil Arabi was sentenced to death for insulting the Prophet Mohammad on the Facebook.The Revolutionary Guards arrested Soheil Arabi on November 2013. Iranian Twitter user Velgard tweeted below about this, explaining that Arabi is only a 30 year old Iranian who is not a political activist, but merely “one of...

Hossein Derakhshan Released from Prison

  22 November 2014

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, on Thursday pardoned the jailed blogger Hossein Derakhshan after his six years.Derakhshan thanked God, Khamenei and his family on his Google Plus page.

Iranians protest in solidarity with Kobane

  7 October 2014

Iranians held several protest rallies in different cities including Tehran,Tabriz and Mehabad to support Kobane‘s people on Tuesday.Fighting continues to rage in the Syria-Turkey border town of Kobane Iran protest in solidarity with #Kobane Photos: @NasimMohammadi_ pic.twitter.com/QHu1k1szxB — Negar Mortazavi (@NegarMortazavi) October 7, 2014

Iranian Judiciary Sets 1-Month Deadline to Block Viber

  20 September 2014

Iranian judiciary has set a one-month deadline for Hassan Rohani's government to block or to control messaging applications Viber, WhatsApp and TangoMe. Iran judiciary sets 1-month deadline for communications ministry to block messaging apps @Viber, @WhatsApp & @TangoMe — Sobhan Hassanvand (@Hassanvand) September 20, 2014