May 5 – Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, said the British government was negligent in its failure to acknowledge that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was a security threat, this week.
Ratcliffe said the government’s current approach to the military unit — which oversees Iran’s defense, intelligence and legal frameworks — was emboldening its agenda and that a reluctance to set “red lines” would lead to more tragedies.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was imprisoned in Iran on charges of “plotting to overthrow the Islamic Republic,” which were called arbitrary by Britain’s government.
Microsoft said Iran’s regime was incorporating new tactics into its cyberattacks in its latest report on the issue, after the tech company detected a sharp rise in the number of online attacks linked to the state.
Among the new strategies adopted by the hackers, was the use of cyber-enabled influence operations (IO) designed to discredit opposition figures.
Microsoft said the attacks had been accelerating since June, and that while their techniques had changed, the targets — which include prominent Iranian opposition figures and groups, Gulf state foes and Israel — remained the same.
And Iranian film director Mohammad Rasoulof was barred from leaving Iran to attend the Cannes Film Festival as a judge for the event.
The festival organizers had hoped to secure his attendance following his temporary release from Iran’s Evin prison. Rasoulof was charged with collusion against national security, insulting the regime leadership, and spreading propaganda against the state.
His films are known for shedding light on social issues including the regime’s use of the death penalty, and the effects of living in an Islamic Republic on Iranian society.
