Iran executes wrestler Navid Afkari despite pleas from Trump and Dana White

September 12, 2020; Washington Examiner

The Iranian regime has hanged 27-year-old champion wrestler Navid Afkari after international backlash grew against the jailed protester’s conviction, according to the country's state-run news agency.

Afkari was executed at a prison in Shiraz on Saturday, Iranian state-run news reported. The wrestler was handed two death sentences after being accused of killing a security guard during anti-regime protests in 2018, but Afkari maintained his innocence and claimed he was forced to confess after brutal torture.

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Iranian opposition figures unite to demand country’s freedom

July 19, 2020; Arab News

The Iranian regime’s approaching demise became more apparent on Friday, as hundreds of thousands of Iranians and their international friends joined together in a historic and unprecedented virtual summit calling for a free Iran.

The global summit was groundbreaking in technological and logistical terms. International dignitaries praised the main opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) for industriously overcoming the challenges of the coronavirus disease pandemic to host the event. “It is a real tribute to the organizational skills of the NCRI that we could pull together in the middle of a worldwide pandemic this kind of gathering… in support of freedom for the people of Iran,” said former White House Director of Public Liaison Linda Chavez.

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Marjan, Iranian actress and singer who became symbol of rebellion, dies at 71

June 12, 2020; The Washington Post

Marjan, a popular singer and actress in pre-revolutionary Iran who, after being imprisoned by the country’s Islamic authorities in the 1980s, lent her voice to the cause of political freedom in her homeland, died June 5 at a hospital in Los Angeles. She was 71.

The cause was complications from surgery, the National Council of Resistance of Iran said in a statement.

Marjan, the stage name for Shahla Safi Zamir, acted in more than 30 Farsi-language films in the 1960s and 1970s and was one of Iran’s best-known celebrities before the overthrow of the country’s Western-backed leader, or shah, in 1979. She also made hit records, often evoking nostalgic sentiments, that were popular with Iranians.

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Iran: Prisoners killed by security forces during COVID-19 pandemic protests

April 9, 2020; Amnesty International

Around 36 prisoners in Iran are feared to have been killed by security forces after the use of lethal force to control protests over COVID-19 safety fears, Amnesty International has learned.

In recent days, thousands of prisoners in at least eight prisons around the country have staged protests over fears of contracting the coronavirus, sparking deadly responses from prison officers and security forces.

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Iran Has Far More Coronavirus Cases Than It Is Letting On

March 9, 2020; The Atlantic 

The surprising number of Iranian government officials succumbing to COVID-19 offers a hint that the disease is far more widespread than the official statistics indicate.

You are standing before a huge barrel of apples. You can’t see the apples, but you can reach in and pick them out. Most are delicious, but a very small number of them are rotten—just about one in 12,000, your friend assures you. You reach in blindly and miraculously pick out a rotten apple. You reach in again and withdraw a whole heaping bushel of apples, maybe 50 in all. Most are good, but when you look closely you see them: one, two, three, four more rotten apples. One rotten apple is an amazing coincidence. Five means your barrel has lots of rotting apples in it and your friend was lying to you.

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