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The use of terms such as “line of poverty” and “absolute poverty” have become commonplace in Iran. Iranian official media always provide the most optimistic estimates.

Mohammad Sharifi Moghaddam, Gonabadi Dervish and one of the collaborators of Majzooban Noor, a website affiliated with Gonabadi Dervish minority, has been sentenced to a twelve-year prison sentence, 74 lashes, two-year exile in a remote city, a two-year ban on leaving the country and a two-year ban from all political and social-media activity.

All members of a church have been sentenced to one year imprisonment for practising Christianity.

A prisoner was executed at the Central Prison of Ardabil. He was charged with murder.

 Ali Badrkhani, a prisoner of conscience detained in Urmia’s central prison (northwestern Iran), has been on hunger strike since Tuesday, August 7, 2018. Mr Badrkhani is protesting his transfer to a ward in the prison where 400 narcotics prisoners are held. Mr Badrkhani deems the transfer a violation of the principle of classification of the inmates based on the type of the offences.

A member of Iranian Parliment says 50 percent of the country’s population live in absolute poverty, and the poverty line has reached close to 6 million tomans (about 1.370 dollars).

Emphasizing that before the Rouhani’s second term, 12% of the people were in absolute poverty and the poverty line was close to 3 million tomans (about 683 dollars), Rasoul Khezri said, the percentage of people who have suffered from extreme poverty has risen several times. (ICANA state-run Website – 1 Aug 2018)

Thousands of Iranians have had protests for the fourth consecutive day, against poor living conditions, unemployment and economic difficulties on Friday 4 August 2018.

Arash Sadeghi, a human rights activist imprisoned in Rajaei Shahr Prison, has written an open letter following the assassination of Eqbal Moradi, a political activist in Iraqi Kurdistan and the father of political prisoner . Mr Sadeghi points out the history of the Islamic Republic’s assassination campaigns inside and outside the country, ongoing since February 1979.

The dead body of Eqbal Moradi was found in Penjwen, a district of Iraqi Kurdistan which shares a border with Iran. He had been reportedly killed with three bullets. It wasn’t the first time that an attempt was made on his life.

Zeinab Jalalian, along with nine prisoners of ordinary offences, went on hunger strike in protest to being deprived of weekly visits and basic facilities.

Prison authorities had discovered a mobile phone following an inspection of the prisoners’ section during the past few days.