MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD

President Joe Biden has hit back at Iran over the government’s brutal crackdown on antigovernment protests and he's signaled that more sanctions may soon be announced.

Iranian state TV showed voters streaming to cast their ballots, but very different scenes were playing out on Tehran’s streets, where traffic was light and polling places appeared relatively empty.

Iran’s presidential election Friday will determine who will lead the country’s civilian government.

Iran’s judiciary chief and a prominent hard-line cleric has registered to run in the country's June presidential election.

Iran’s former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has registered to run again for the Islamic Republic’s presidency.

Iran has opened registration for potential candidates in the country's June presidential election.

In this photo released Monday, Jan. 4, 2021, by Tasnim News Agency, a seized South Korean-flagged tanker is escorted by Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats on the Persian Gulf. Iranian state television acknowledged that Tehran seized the oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif seemed to acknowledge Tehran's interest in leveraging the situation in a tweet about its nuclear enrichment. Meanwhile, Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard seized the MT Hankuk Chemi, with photos later released showing its vessels alongside the tanker. The South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted an anonymous company official denying the Iranian claim the ship polluted the water.

Shajarian, whose distinctive voice quavered to traditional Persian music on state radio for years before supporting protesters following Irans contested 2009 election, has died, state TV reported Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020. Shajarian enlivened Iran’s traditional music with his singing style, which soared, swooped and trilled over long-known poetry set to song. “After what happened, I said ‘no way’ and threatened to file a complaint against them if they continued to use my music,” Shajarian told The Associated Press in 2009. Perhaps the light of humanity will get through to your heart too.”Shajarian then told state radio to stop using his songs, which they did. For the first time in over a decade, state TV showed file footage of the singer.

(AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)DUBAI Iranian state television has broadcast the suspected coerced confessions of at least 355 people over the last decade as a means to both suppress dissent and frighten activists in the Islamic Republic on behalf of security services, according to a report released Thursday. The number of those filmed likely is even higher as some say their coerced confessions have yet to air, while others may not have been immediately accessible to researchers, said Mohammad Nayyeri, co-director of Justice for Iran. IRIB operates as a media hub that links a vast network of security, intelligence, military and judicial organizations, the report said. State television aired confessions by suspected members of communist groups, insurgents and others. But there are many more, according to the report, including those who have yet to see their confessions broadcast.

Forensic worker carry a body from a hotel downtown Bucharest, Romania, Friday, June 19, 2020. Gholamreza Mansouri, a former judge from Iran sought by his country to face corruption charges has died in unusual circumstances, Romanian media reported. Romanian police said only that a man had fallen from a high floor at a hotel in Bucharest, the Romanian capital, and was found dead. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)BUCHAREST A former judge from Iran sought by his country to face corruption charges died Friday after a fall in a hotel, Romanian media reported Friday. ___Associated Press writer David Rising in Berlin, and Andreea Alexandru in Bucharest, contributed to this report.