A UN Special Rapporteur On Unilateral Sanctions To Visit Iran In May

The demonstrators gathered in front of the Education Ministry building in Tehran on Thursday and its offices in various other cities to protest discriminatory regulations on a teacher ranking plan as well as the "continuous and systematic" suppression of union activists.

According to videos uploaded on social media, the security situation around the Ministry building was tense as security forces cordoned off the streets leading to the central building of the ministry and did not allow teachers to pass.

Videos from other cities show protesters shouting slogans against the education ministry and parliament with some demonstrators assailing its speaker, whose family’s recent shopping trip to Turkey has led to widespread condemnations.

The Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations said in its Telegram channel that at least 40 protesters were arrested until noon local time. It recently said in a statement that the teachers' movement "will not be subdued" by security and judicial crackdowns on union activists that have intensified in recent months, including sentencing them to four to 12 years in prison.

Teachers across Iran have staged several nationwide protests and strikes in the past six months and have vowed to continue protests until authorities meet their demands including, the implementation of decade-old legislation that would bring the salaries and pensions of 750,000 teachers in line with other civil servants.

Brig. Gen. Shlomi Binder was quoted by Haaretz on Thursday as saying that constant vigilance is needed at the northern front, as the army cannot just rely on intelligence to know about its opponent’s possible surprise moves.

He said that in recent years, Hezbollah has moved its special forces known as Radwan unit to the Israeli border region and has expanded its firepower, with more ability to conduct large offensive operations. In other words, Hezbollah has become more of an army than a guerilla force. Binder said.

Radwan forces have a long experience fighting in the Syrian civil war and played a major role in capturing Aleppo in 201602017.

Iran’s Fars news website affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard on Thursday picked up on Israeli media’s reporting and splashed a headline that “The Zionists confess they are scared of Rezvan units,” meaning Radwan, as the Persian pronunciation differs from the Arabic version.

General Binder also claimed that Hezbollah faces political pushback in Lebanon as the country enters its third year of a severe economic crisis and widespread poverty. However, he said, Iran continues its financial assistance to the group, whose fighters earn much more than Lebanese army soldiers and officiers.

Iran’s financial support for Hezbollah and other militant group comes despite its own economic crisis partly due to American sanctions.

The statement published late on Wednesday only said these individuals were involved “in the dissemination of classified information and documents", adding they were "arrested by a court order".

The statement didn’t provide any further information about what these individuals did or how they were arrested.

The Islamic Republic periodically announces it has busted “terrorist” or spying networks, but it rarely provides any follow-up news or concrete information and almost never holds public trials. In some cases, individuals convicted of ties with Israel have been executed.

In October, Iran announced that ten people were arrested for “links with intelligence services” of regional “adversaries” without disclosing which intelligence service had established the alleged network inside the country.

The use of the term ‘regional adversary’ could refer to Israel which is suspected of conducting spectacular sabotage acts against Iran’s nuclear, military and strategic economic targets since July 2020, or it could mean Saudi Arabia.

In March, Iran also announced its security forces had dismantled two foreign-backed terrorist teams, alleging plotting to assassinate several foreign nationals working on infrastructure projects in Sistan-Baluchestan province.

Tensions have risen between Israel and Iran as the Biden administration has tried to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement, which Israel considers a dangerous move.

The footage of Maghsoudi showed her apparently resisting the arrest of her brother, Hamid-Reza Maghsoudi, who was in her car at a gas station in Boroujerd, Lorestan province, on April 16.

The clip shows Fatemeh Maghsoudi, the city’s parliamentary representative, calling for help and attempting to free her brother from three police officers trying to take him into custody. Hamid-Reza Maghsoudi had been on the run since sentenced to five years in prison in January for selling a property he did not own.

Maghsoudi later claimed the officers had not introduced themselves, making her think he was the victim of an attempted kidnap. But some social media users were outraged and argued that she had not been complying with the law.

In an interview with the Iranian Labour News Agency published Wednesday, Maghsoudi, who is secretary of the women’s faction in parliament, took issue with Tasnim News for describing her as a reformist. She insisted she was a principlist and “completely a follower” of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

In her latest book published earlier in April, titled ‘The Uncaged Sky: My 804 days in an Iranian prison’ the Australian-British expert on Islamic studies detailed her daily struggle to survive her incarceration.

Having spent time in two of the most notorious Iranian prisons -- Evin and Qarchak – she tells the readers how she was pushed to the limit of her endurance by extreme physical and psychological deprivation as she was held in a filthy solitary confinement cell for months, and subjected to relentless interrogation.

She narrated how she began adopting a strategy of resistance against her captors through multiple hunger strikes, letters smuggled to the media, and coordinated protests with other prisoners, as well as an escape attempt that led to her transfer to the isolated desert prison Qarchak.

She was arrested at Tehran Airport by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on September 12, 2018, was convicted of espionage in a closed-door trial, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Moore-Gilbert, who is a lecturer in Islamic Studies at Melbourne University, was released in November 2020 in a prisoner swap with three Iranian prisoners in Thailand, two of whom had been convicted in connection with a bombing plot in Bangkok in 2012.