Ahmad Shaja’i, the country’s chief of forensic medicine, has told the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) that suicides increased nearly 5 percent since last year, with 952 Iranians taking their lives during the first quarter of the Iranian year, which began in March, compared with 870 the same time last year. More than 70 percent…

The Iranian National Security Ministry is targeting Farsi-language websites which do not adhere to strict Shi’ite Muslim theology. Among those hit in cyber-attacks is Mohabat News, which serves Persian Christians in Iran and surrounding countries. “The most recent attack took place on august 19, 2011, in which the attackers overloaded the server of MohabatNews and made…

Iran’s morality police have a new target: dancing kindergartners. Ahmad Esfandiari, the head of the state’s Welfare Department, has issued a stern warning in the news media, notifying Iranian kindergartens that any programs which continue to teach five-year-olds how to dance will lose their operating permits. According to reports from Aftab News and Mohabat News, Esfandiari criticized…

Iranian authorities have seized 6,500 copies of the Bible in northwest of Iran. In another incident, officials burned 300 Bibles. A spokesman said the Bibles were confiscated to block missionaries who “are trying to deviate our youth.” Dr. Majid Abhari, adviser to the social issues committee of the parliament in Iran, told the official Iranian…

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