IRAN

RICHARD MEDHURST—Richard debunks the thick fog of lies clouding, as usual, the truth about Iran, and her “democracy with Iranian characteristics.” Iran is actually a socialist and firmly anti-imperialist country. 

Besides the US government persecution, over the past two years, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube have also blocked the accounts of resistance networks “under false pretexts and in violation of international protocols and laws in the field of freedom of expression,” and have imposed severe restrictions on resistance networks in cyberspace.

THE SAKER—The sad and disgusting reality about the Zionist entity is truly coming out, seeping under the propaganda walls of the Empire, and slowly but inevitably resulting in a common reaction of outrage and utter disgust for what is nothing else but the last officially racist country on the planet, the only country with an open-air concentration camp it surrounds on all sides, the only country which truly, openly and sincerely does not give a damn about international law or about the lives of non-Jews (while calling their own lives sacred, of course!).

MoA—The list of seven presidential hopefuls was unveiled by Iranian state media on Tuesday. The candidates have been picked from nearly 600 people who submitted their bids for approval. The list is dominated by political hardliners, including judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi, believed to be a very close figure to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a favorite in the upcoming polls.
Raisi ran for president before, losing to the incumbent president, Hassan Rouhani, back in 2017 by a wide margin of nearly 20% of the votes. Rouhani is barred from running for office again due to legal limitations, as he has already served the maximum allowed two consecutive four-year terms.

ANDREY KORTUNOV—The problem of trust between the people of Russia and Iran remains unresolved, if only because they have very poor knowledge of each other. What they do know is often “hearsay” received primarily from Western sources, which are not always objective, to say the least. Besides, the history of Russia-Iran bilateral relations has various pages, and it probably would be wrong to claim that old grievances, stereotypes, and biases that have formed over centuries have no influence on the public mood. Even in recent years, relations between the two countries have had their down points: in summer 2010, for instance, when Russia postponed supplies of S-300 missile systems to Iran. After this decision, many among Iranian conservatives concluded Moscow saw Tehran only as a bargaining chip in its greater game with the West.