More than 120 international academics and human rights activists have signed a statement protesting the banning of Zanan Magazine—meaning "women's magazine"—by the Iranian government this month, after 16 years in print. Iranian authorities have canceled the licenses of many publications in recent years, but Zanan's closure has sparked strong protests. Among those signing the statement are Noam Chomsky, Jürgen Habermas and Shirin Ebadi. More than 1,000 journalists, intellectuals and cultural personalities within Iran and abroad wrote a similar letter. (Global Voices Onine, Feb. 14)

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met with Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmon in the Tajik capital Dushanbe Feb. 13, where the leaders of the two Persian-speaking countries issued a joint statement saying they stand for a world without nuclear arms and support creation of nuclear-free zones. They also said they regard peaceful use of nuclear power as the legal right of every country. Tajikistan has been part of a Central Asian Nuclear-Free Zone since 2006.

From Amnesty International, Jan. 15:

Iran: Death by stoning, a grotesque and unacceptable penalty
As nine women and two men in Iran wait to be stoned to death, Amnesty International today called on the Iranian authorities to abolish death by stoning and impose an immediate moratorium on this horrific practice, specifically designed to increase the suffering of the victims.

Iran is contesting Washington's version of the Jan. 5 incident in the Strait of Hormuz. From the Los Angeles Times, Jan. 11:

Iran releases its own tape on Hormuz ship incident
BEIRUT -- Iran released a videotape Thursday to support its side of an ongoing propaganda battle with Washington over a weekend naval confrontation in the narrow waterway leading into the Persian Gulf.

From the Polytechnic Free Campaign, support group for dissident students at Amir Kabir University of Technology (formerly Tehran Polytechnic), Dec. 6:

On Tuesday the 4th of December, security police and masked intelligence agents arrested 28 students during a demonstration against the Iranian government. Some of them are detained in solitary confinement in the notorious high security lockup of 209 and some in the small lockup of the intelligence agency in central Tehran called Tracking office (Daftare Peygiri).

The Iranian town of Boroujerd, Luristan province, is tense and divided following the Nov. 10 destruction of a hosseinieh or monastery belonging to the Gonabadi Sufi order by the police and Basij paramilitary forces. According to Mohsen Yahyavi, the conservative parliamentary representative for Boroujerd, the trouble began when Sufis abducted and beat several youths affiliated with a nearby mosque. The Sufis, however, tell a different story. One young female follower of the order told IPS: "Religious vigilantes had once before tried to bulldoze the hosseinieh and succeeded in destroying parts of its walls. This time on the night before the hosseinieh was completely destroyed, the Basij militia and the vigilantes staged a bogus attack on a nearby mosque where there was a gathering to criticize Sufi beliefs. The attack was then blamed on the Sufis to justify the attack on the hosseinieh."

Iran's hardline daily newspaper Jamhouri Eslami made a rare attack on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for making espionage accusations against a former nuclear negotiator, Hossein Mousavian, and saying that influential politicians were using their power to have him cleared. Mousavian was an aide to former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. "Lately defaming political rivals has become common in the country and has replaced lawful behaviour," the newspaper wrote in an editorial. "We want to reject this kind of behavior as immoral, illegal, illogical and un-Islamic and remind wise figures that such a trend is dangerous for the country."

A statement by the Organization for Women's Liberation—Iran, Nov 8:

We condemn the war against people in Iran!
The risk of a military attack against people in Iran is imminent. The US administration is adamant about an attack against Iran. The US government is trying to gain support of other states and the public opinion in the US for the attack. The French foreign minister has defended military attack against Iran. They claim war is inevitable if Islamic regime is to be prevented from producing nuclear weapons. On the other hand the Islamic regime is flaring up the fire of war. Both sides have escalated their war propaganda. Economic sanctions against Iran too are adding to the prospect of death and devastation.