The Farda Briefing

Welcome back to The Farda Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that tracks the key issues in Iran and explains why they matter.

I'm RFE/RL correspondent Golnaz Esfandiari. Here's what I’ve been following during the past week and what I’m watching for in the days ahead.

The Big Issue

For the past week, the families of prisoners on death row have been staging protests to demand that authorities halt their pending executions.

Dozens of protesters have rallied in front of Iran's judiciary headquarters in Tehran and outside the Islamic Revolutionary Court in the city of Karaj.

Amateur videos and images from the protests have shown protesters holding signs that read “Don’t execute” and “No to executions.”

On September 12, which was to be the sixth consecutive day of the protests, law enforcement and security officers dispersed the demonstrators and arrested several of them.

The protests came amid a significant rise in the number of executions carried out in Iran under hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi and judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, a former intelligence minister.

Amnesty International and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran warned in July that Iranian authorities have embarked on an execution spree, killing at least 251 people between January 1 and June 30.

The rights groups said that, if executions continue at the current pace, they will soon surpass the total of 314 executions recorded for the whole of 2021.

Why It Matters: Public protests by the families of prisoners on death row are rare in the Islamic republic, which has one of the highest rates of executions in the world.

Desperation appears to have forced the families of those sentenced to death to rally, with the demonstrators hoping to pressure the authorities to drop the sentences.

The protests prompted Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard to call for Iran to end the death penalty.

What's Next: The protests could raise public awareness about Iran’s use of the death penalty, which has been abolished in 144 countries around the world.

Criticism of the executions has increased in recent years.

In 2020, Iranians participated in an unprecedented social media campaign using the hashtag #don’t_execute, which resulted in the overturning of the death sentences of three young men arrested during nationwide 2019 anti-government protests. Last week, the lawyer of the three men suggested that they could be released “conditionally.”

Stories You Might Have Missed

• Iranian authorities have been accused of secretly implementing a draft bill that is designed to intensify online censorship and limit Internet access. The proposed legislation has been met with fierce criticism inside the country, where the government already blocks tens of thousands of websites and regularly cuts Internet connectivity.

The Supreme Cyberspace Council last week sidestepped the parliament and adopted three articles of the unapproved law. The move raised concerns that the contentious bill is gradually becoming a reality. If approved, the legislation would hand over control of Iran's Internet gateways to the armed forces and criminalize the use of virtual private networks (VPNs), which many Iranians use to bypass state censorship of the Internet.

• Imprisoned Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival over the weekend for his latest film, No Bears.

Panahi, 62, was imprisoned in July after a Tehran court ruled he must serve a six-year sentence he was handed more than a decade ago for supporting anti-government demonstrations.

Iranian actor Reza Heydari told journalists after the award ceremony that Panahi had sent him a message from prison. "He told me not to get into trouble for him," said Heydari, who plays one of the main characters in No Bears. "The award he has received brings a message -- an artist in a prison or outside a prison can still produce his message because he loves art and he loves cinema."

What We're Watching

For the first time, Kyiv has said it downed an Iranian Shahed suicide drone used by Russia in its war in Ukraine. Iran has not publicly reacted to the claim, which follows an August 29 report in The Washington Post suggesting that Russian cargo planes have picked up the first batch of Iranian-made drones for use in Ukraine.

Why It Matters: The reported downing of an Iranian drone in Ukraine is likely to increase concerns over Tehran’s drone program and the country’s deepening ties with Russia.

It comes a few days after the United States imposed sanctions against an Iranian air transportation company it accused of coordinating military flights between Iran and Russia, including for transporting drones and related equipment. Three other Iranian companies were also sanctioned for the production of drones.

That’s all from me for now. Don’t forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you have.

Until next time,

Golnaz Esfandiari

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Wednesday.

Welcome back to The Farda Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that tracks the key issues in Iran and explains why they matter.

I'm RFE/RL correspondent Golnaz Esfandiari. Here's what I’ve been following during the past week and what I’m watching for in the days ahead.

The Big Issue

An Iranian court this week sentenced two female activists to death for promoting homosexuality, human rights groups said. The two women were convicted of “corruption on Earth,” a vague criminal charge that is often used against opponents of the clerical regime or those deemed to have broken the country's Islamic laws.

Zahra Sedighi Hamedani and Elham Chubdar were also found guilty of “promoting Christianity” and “communicating with media opposed to the Islamic republic.”

Iran’s judiciary confirmed the death sentence, but it denied the charges stemmed from the women’s activism. It accused them of trafficking and exploiting young women. The sentences have provoked widespread outrage online.

Melika Zarr from the Germany-based Iranian LGBTQ rights group 6Rang told RFE/RL's Radio Farda that Iranian authorities are “sensitive about increased awareness about LGBT rights” and “therefore crack down on the LGBT community while also creating false charges against them.”

Amnesty International said in January that Hamedani had been charged with “corruption on Earth” due to her public support for LGBT rights, as well as her appearance in a 2021 BBC documentary about sexual minorities in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. Soon after, Hamedani said she was detained by Kurdistan authorities. She later reportedly attempted to reach Turkey via Iran but she was arrested.

Why It Matters: The death sentences are a chilling message to Iran’s LGBT community, which faces constant state pressure and discrimination. Under the country’s Islamic penal code, homosexuality is punishable by death. The sentences were handed down just days after hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi publicly blasted homosexuality as “very ugly and despicable.”

Earlier this year, Iran reportedly executed two gay men convicted of sodomy. Last year, a 20-year-old gay man was killed by his family in a so-called "honor" killing.

What's Next: Rights groups and activists are likely to intensify pressure on Iranian authorities to drop the death sentences against Hamedani and Chubdar. According to Iranian law, the women have 20 days to appeal. The 6Rang rights group has vowed to “halt the sentences in the appeals process.”

Stories You Might Have Missed

• Iranian filmmaker Ali Ahmadzadeh has been released after spending several days in detention. Sources told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda that Ahmadzadeh was arrested in Tehran on August 30, after being summoned to security agencies several times in recent months. After that, the editor of the Mizan news agency, which is affiliated with Iran's judiciary, denied the claim. But Ahmadzadeh told Radio Farda that after he was summoned last week, he was held for five days until being released on September 3.

Ahmadzadeh has long been on the radar screens of the government, and his detention is the latest in a series of arrests of cultural and activist figures in Iran. Well-known filmmakers such as Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof have been arrested in recent weeks.

• Former Iranian President Hassan Rohani said a meeting between him and U.S. President Donald Trump in 2019 was scrapped because of the White House's refusal to hold off on publicizing the event until after it took place. Rohani’s comments were made during interviews with the authors of a new book, Without Smoke, Fire, And Blood, an account of his eight years as president of Iran.

Rohani said that he was ready to go against the orders of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and meet with the American leader in New York during a United Nations General Assembly in hopes the talks could lead to the easing of some U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

“It was clear to me that Trump is an actor,” Rohani was quoted as saying in the book, excerpts of which have been released ahead of its publication in Iran. “He was not a normal person.”

Rohani was president when Trump unilaterally pulled the United States out of the 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers.

What We're Watching

Last week, Iran and the United States looked to be on the cusp of an agreement to restore the 2015 nuclear deal. But this week, there is growing pessimism that a deal can be clinched quickly.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said he is “less confident” that a deal can be closed in the coming days. Tehran has again been accused of dragging its feet. Iran has reportedly insisted that the UN nuclear agency drop its probe into the origins of nuclear material found at three undeclared Iranian sites. Without that, Raisi said the nuclear deal would be “meaningless.”

Why It Matters: There is likely to be more back and forth between Iran and the United States in the coming days and weeks. Despite nearly 18 months of talks, both sides appear committed to the negotiations. An Iranian government spokesman said this week that Tehran has “no intention” of leaving the negotiating table.

That’s all from me for now. Don’t forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you have.

Until next time,

Golnaz Esfandiari

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Wednesday.