THIS PAGE WILL BE UPDATED WITH THE LATEST NEWS
UPDATE: 9:00 PM CET
European Parliament Condemns Iranian Regime’s Role in Transnational Repression of Dissidents and Human Rights Defenders
The European Parliament has adopted a new report calling for coordinated EU action against transnational repression, explicitly naming the clerical regime in Iran among the top state perpetrators targeting exiled dissidents, journalists, and human rights defenders abroad.
The report — adopted on November 13, 2025, by the Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs — warns that authoritarian regimes are extending their repressive reach beyond national borders, using surveillance, intimidation, and digital harassment to silence critics living in exile. According to Freedom House data cited in the report, ten regimes — including Iran— account for nearly 80 percent of documented cases of cross-border persecution between 2014 and 2024.
Lawmakers denounced Iran’s campaign of intimidation, abductions, and online harassment of dissidents and journalists based in Europe, calling it a “serious threat to European sovereignty and civic space.” The report urges the EU and its Member States to criminalize foreign intelligence operations targeting exiled activists, tighten controls on spyware exports to authoritarian states, and consider targeted sanctions against perpetrators under the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime (Magnitsky Act).
The resolution also calls for enhanced protection of Iranian and other human rights defenders in exile, including fast-track humanitarian visas, legal and digital security support, and coordinated EU-wide shelter programs.
The report says that the EU must act decisively to ensure Europe remains a safe haven for those fleeing persecution. The report emphasizes that transnational repression by Iran and other regimes not only endangers individuals but undermines democracy and rule of law within the EU itself.
The vote passed overwhelmingly, with 47 in favor, 8 against, and one abstention — signaling a growing European consensus to confront the long arm of authoritarian states like Iran operating on European soil.
Former UK Speaker of the House John Bercow Joins Free Iran Convention as Regime Faces Revolt, Defections
Tomorrow, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and other organizations will meet in Washington, D.C. for the 2025 Free Iran Convention, an all-day event that aims to “explore a growing roadmap for change” towards a “democratic, prosperous republic in Iran.”
The NCRI, which has a U.S. division, “acts as the parliament-in-exile with some 500 members (half of them women), including representatives of ethnic and religious minorities such as the Kurds, Baluchis, Armenians, Jews and Zoroastrians.” It was founded in 1981, after the Iranian Revolution, and “aims to establish a democratic and non-nuclear republic in Iran, based on the separation of religion and state.”
Three years later, in 1984, the U.S. designated Iran the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, including funding Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis in Yemen, and Iraqi militias. In recent years, Britain’s MI5 reported Iran was behind at least ten attempts to kidnap or kill people in Britain in 2022 and the government elevated Iran to a “persistent and unpredictable” threat in the U.K.
UPDATE: 3:00 PM CET
I Am Mohammad-Javad Vafaei Sani
Close your eyes for a moment. Try to imagine what it means to choose to stay when you could run. What it means to clench your gloves when every punch could be your last. What it means to look your kids in the eyes in a gym in Mashhad and whisper the most dangerous word in Iran: freedom .
Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani is thirty years old. He’s a boxing champion, a coach, and now a death row inmate. But before all that, he was a dreamer. Like Muhammad Ali, the man who floated like a butterfly and stinged like a bee, Sani understood that the ring wasn’t enough. That the most important punches aren’t thrown against an opponent, but against a system that wants to break you.
Barrack: Syria to Help US Fight IRGC, Hamas, Hezbollah
Syria will play an active role in assisting the United States in fighting armed groups including Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hamas and Hezbollah, US special envoy Tom Barrack said on Thursday.
President Ahmed al-Sharaa became the first Syrian leader to visit the White House since his country’s independence in 1946.
Shortly after his visit, the US-led coalition fighting ISIS announced that Syria had become its 90th member.
On Thursday, Barrack wrote on X that “Damascus will now actively assist us in confronting and dismantling the remnants of ISIS, the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps), Hamas, Hizballah, and other terrorist networks.”
US Lawmakers Demand Answers from Trump Administration Over Chinese Chemical Shipments to Iran following CNN Reporting
US lawmakers have called for the Trump administration to respond to reporting that Chinese firms are helping Iran rebuild its ballistic missile program in defiance of United Nations sanctions.
The call, from Representatives Raja Krishnamoorthi and Joe Courtney, follows CNN reporting last month detailing what Western intelligence sources said were several shipments of sodium perchlorate, a missile propellant precursor, from China to Iran since the end of September.
These shipments are “indispensable to Tehran’s efforts to rebuild its ballistic missile arsenal following its 12-day war with Israel last summer,” the congressmen wrote in a letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Central Intelligence Agency director John Ratcliffe.
Tehran’s Weakness Is Exposed—Now the Free World Must Act
American and European policies toward the Islamic Republic have followed divergent paths in recent years. But that trend has begun to reverse since last summer, when the United Kingdom, France, and Germany triggered the “snapback” provision of the 2015 nuclear deal, reimposing all UN sanctions that had been suspended under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). With international pressure mounting, the UK and the European Union are now aligning more closely with the U.S. strategy of “maximum pressure.”
To make that policy effective, America’s allies must take several long-overdue steps. The divergence began in earnest in 2018, when the Trump administration rightly withdrew from the JCPOA and designated the regime’s hardline paramilitary, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as a foreign terrorist organization. Majorities in both the British and European parliaments have since adopted resolutions urging their governments to do the same. Yet political leadership continues to hesitate, fearful of potential diplomatic fallout.
UPDATE: 7:30 AM CET
Sanctions Are Not Enough: Only Iranians Themselves Can Secure Lasting Change
In the wake of the recent U.S. and Israeli strikes, the Western world is tempted by a sense of triumphalism. But such feelings, while understandable, are misplaced. What has been destroyed can and will be rebuilt. The more urgent question is how to bring lasting security—not only to the region, but to the world.
The danger posed by the Iranian regime extends far beyond its nuclear ambitions. Iran’s rulers are driven by an ideology and worldview that embraces regional destabilization, supports proxy militias, and spurns international law. Strikes and sabotage might cause a temporary setback in Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but they cannot bomb away knowledge, experience, or determination. This is not a lesson confined to Iran. After World War II, Germany was laid in ruins and yet, within a mere 15 years, the economic miracle unfolded. Brains, willpower, and culture cannot be obliterated by force.
Will Washington Be Ready for Iran’s Next Uprising?
The Iranian American community ranks among the most successful, educated, and civically engaged immigrant groups in the United States. Yet despite their achievements, they have remained deeply connected to their homeland and focused on one of Washington’s most persistent foreign policy problems: the Islamic Republic of Iran. Today, that challenge is entering a critical phase as an aging dictatorship confronts unprecedented internal crises and a restive population determined to reclaim its future.
For more than four decades, Tehran has ruled through repression.
Three years ago, the regime’s leaders faced a nearly existential crisis in the Mahsa Amini uprising when millions demanded fundamental change.
Iran’s Regime in Crisis Mode After Tragic Death of Ahvaz Youth
The scene has seared itself into the conscience of Iran: a 20-year-old student, Ahmad Baledi, engulfed in flames, yet still lunging to defend his mother from the attacks of Iranian regime thugs. His tragic death on November 11, days after he set himself on fire to protest the destruction of his family’s humble food stall, has become far more than a personal tragedy. It is a political earthquake that has exposed the mortal fear at the heart of the clerical regime. The regime’s panicked, two-faced reaction—swinging from brutal threats to the clumsy dismissal of scapegoats—is definitive proof that it has lost control in the face of a nation’s explosive anger.
The regime’s initial response was predictable: brute force. On November 7, the judiciary in Khuzestan issued an official statement, threatening that any individual or group who tried to “exploit this incident to disrupt calm and security” would be dealt with harshly. But decades of oppression have rendered such threats meaningless. The people are no longer afraid. This was powerfully demonstrated by Ahmad’s father, who defiantly declared, “We will not hold a funeral or accept the body until” the mayor and another official are removed from the city.
Maryam Abbassi Nikou Re-arrested in Shahin Shahr by IRGC Intelligence Forces
Maryam Abbassi Nikou, a 44-year-old resident of Shahin Shahr in Isfahan Province, was once again arrested on Monday, November 10, 2025, by intelligence agents of the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and taken to an undisclosed location. The IRGC Intelligence agents raided her home without presenting any legal warrant and detained her arbitrarily. In an Instagram post, her daughter, Bita Shafii, wrote: “IRGC intelligence agents stormed our house, abducted my mother, and refuse to provide any information about where she is being held.”
Maryam Abbassi Nikou has previously been targeted, pursued, and detained for speaking out against the Iranian regime’s repressive policies. Her daughter, Bita Shafii, was also arrested and tortured in 2022 for protesting the regime’s organized chemical attacks on girls’ schools across Iran.
Freedom-Loving Iranians in Berlin Call for End to Executions and Freedom for Political Prisoners
Berlin, Germany – November 12, 2025 – Supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) held an exhibition protesting the Iranian regime’s escalating use of the death penalty, particularly against political prisoners. The event also expressed solidarity with the “No to Execution” campaign.
Fashafouyeh Prison – Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary – Part One
Fashafouyeh Prison, officially known as the Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary, is not only one of Iran’s largest prisons but also a symbol of the regime’s structural policy of repression and human degradation. Prisoners call it ‘the end of the world’ — a place where time has stopped and the boundary between life and death has vanished. This report is based on testimonies from released prisoners, family correspondence, and independent field data. All information has been verified and updated up to July 2025. Located 32 kilometers south of Tehran and covering over 110 hectares, Fashafouyeh consists of six main units. Each hall holds about 370 prisoners, despite a standard capacity of only 180. Half of the inmates sleep on the floor beside the toilets.
U.S. Sanctions 32 Individuals and Entities Linked to Iran’s Missile and Drone Programs
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned 32 individuals and entities based in Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, China, Hong Kong, India, Germany, and Ukraine for operating procurement networks supporting the Iranian regime’s ballistic missile and drone production. John K. Hurley, U.S. Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, announced the sanctions on Wednesday, November 12, saying that the Iranian regime abuses global financial systems to launder money, purchase components for its nuclear and weapons programs, and support its proxy groups worldwide.He said: “At the direction of President Trump, we are putting maximum pressure on Iran to end its nuclear threat.”
Iran’s Healthcare System on the Brink of Collapse Amid Massive Nurse Shortage and Mass Exodus
Regime corruption, unpaid wages, and unbearable working conditions push Iran’s medical workforce toward collapse. Iran’s healthcare system is rapidly collapsing under the weight of the regime’s anti-people policies and institutionalized corruption. Even regime officials now admit that the country faces a shortage of at least 165,000 nurses, while the ratio of nurses to patients is several times lower than the global standard. Thousands of nurses have already left the country, and many more are preparing to do so. According to the IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency (October 21, 2025), Qassem Abutalebi, head of the Supreme Nursing Council, admitted: “We currently have a shortage of 165,000 nurses… The nurse-to-hospital-bed ratio in Iran is 0.9, while the global standard is three nurses per bed.” Globally, there are three to five hospital beds per 1,000 people. In Iran, that figure is just 1.6—meaning the number of nurses per capita is six times below the international standard.