US strikes strategic railway bridge linking Iran to China: What to know

The railway bridge also links Tehran and other southern cities to Mashhad, where large crowds are gathering for the burial ceremony on Thursday of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Jack Dutton Jul 9, 2026 The United States struck Iran’s Aq Taqeh Khan railway […]

Even as ceasefire frays, Trump and Iran shy away from full war

The United States and Iran are escalating their tit-for-tat strikes, posing the biggest threat yet to their framework deal. Elizabeth HagedornJul 9, 2026 WASHINGTON — A short-lived ceasefire between the United States and Iran is giving way to spiralling violence, […]

CODIR at UNISON National Delegate Conference 2026

CODIR ran a busy and engaging operation at UNISON’s recent National Delegate Conference.  Our information stall was visited by hundreds of delegates.  As in previous years, we ran our stall alongside Liberation (formerly the Movement for Colonial Freedom, established in […]

CODIR condemns the harsh and repressive sentences handed to women activists in Iran

Escalation of crackdowns on Iranian women campaigners:  Theocratic regime sentences one women’s activist to death and another four to imprisonment HRANA News Agency – A review of judicial verdicts issued over the past week indicates that between 26 June and 3 July, […]

US-Iran deal must centre human rights and region must see real and sustainable end to hostilities

18 June 2026 Responding to the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the USA and Iran to end a months-long war that spilled into neighbouring countries, killing more than 6,000 people across the Middle East and rattling the global […]

 

Rouhani’s “Open-Door” Economic Policy for Iran: Recipe for Indebtedness, Deindustrialization and Dependence

by ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH A number of commentators have compared President Rouhani’s policies of opening Iran’s markets to Western business with those of China’s Deng Xiaoping following the death of Mao Zedong some four decades ago [1]. A closer look at […]

Iranian film-maker Mania Akbari: ‘Cinema threatens the government’

theguardian.com Tom Seymour Among the laptops and the lattes in the foyer of London’s BFI Southbank sits a dissident and exile. Film-maker Mania Akbari fled her native Tehran last summer. She is determined to examine marriage, abortion, infidelity and lesbianism […]

Amnesty International – URGENT ACTION – IRAN: ELDERLY PROFESSOR’S SIX-YEAR JAIL TERM UPHELD

URGENT ACTION ELDERLY PROFESSOR’S SIX-YEAR JAIL TERM UPHELD Elderly prisoner of conscience Hossein Rafiee, a retired university professor, has had his six-year prison sentence, imposed for his peaceful political activism, upheld by an appeal court. The authorities have rejected his […]

Amnesty International – Iran: Joint letter to Member States of the UN Human Rights Council

The joint letter that Amnesty International and 33 other human rights and civil society groups have written to Member States of the UN Human Rights Council, calling on them to support the resolution to renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur […]

Smoke and mirrors in Iranian elections

11th March 2016 Jane Green reports. Media coverage of the Parliamentary elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran last week were remarkable for their absence of criticism of the theocratic regime, its human rights record and its role as one […]

CODIR Calls for the immediate release of trade union leader, Reza Shahabi, from prison!

Reza Shahabi, board member of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Workers’ Syndicate, sentenced to one year imprisonment and the Court of Appeal confirmed the sentence Background information: In December 2014 Reza Shahabi was summoned to Evin prison’s prosecutor office, while he […]

Iran: what does ending sanctions mean for workers?

22 Feb 2016, By Owen Tudor UPDATE – 23 February: Almost immediately this post went live, we heard the depressing news that teachers’ union leader Ismail Abdi (see earlier posts about his case and about Amnesty International designating him a […]

Iran’s Nobel Peace Laureate Speaks From Exile

“Human rights activists do not have the right to lose hope,” says Iran human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi. —By Bryan Schatz Mon Feb. 29, 2016 6:00 AM EST Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi Domenech […]

International unions condemn arrests in Iran

25th Febuary 2016 Press Release For Immediate Use The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has this week protested against a new wave of arrests by the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which further undermine its human rights record, […]

Parliamentary elections in Iran: an interview with FIDH President Karim Lahidji

On 26 February 2016, parliamentary elections are to be held in Iran. Karim Lahidji, President of FIDH and of the League for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran, answers questions about these elections and their possible impact in Iran. […]