This was written by Elise Auerbach and originally published on Human Rights Now, the Amnesty International USA blog. Ordinarily, human rights activists would be pleased when the rare major motion picture shining a light on human rights violations comes along. In fact, aside from documentaries, it is very unusual to see issues that Amnesty International […]

Neda Agha-Soltani was fatally shot during a protest in Iran on Saturday, June 20, 2009. May God give her peace and justice. Several news outlets have reported on her death, and several opinion-makers have heralded her tragic end as a martyrdom for Iran’s opposition movement. In Iran, this may be true: Neda’s death may garner […]

This was written by Mimi and originally published at threadbared. Because this is a fashion plus politics blog, I want to post some very brief thoughts about the protests rocking Iran after what some observers are calling a fraudulent election, reinstalling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against his main opposition, moderate reformer Mir Hossein Mousavi. (For news […]

This post was written by Farah Banihali and originally published at Nuseiba. For another perspective on Persson’s documentary, check out Alicia’s article from a few weeks ago. Iran has always been a country I’d love to sit down and read up on. When I first started university, I wrote a (terrible) essay on the causes […]

Reading Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s commentary in The Independent reminded me a bit of a group of people that Khaled Abou El Fadl mentioned in his introduction to Amina Wadud’s Inside the Gender Jihad. The group of people I refer to are “self-hating Muslims” with “tormented soul(s)” who seem all too eager to assuage the bigoted view […]

During an election campaign, we often get articles focusing on the wives of male candidates. It is never surprising when there are an abundance of articles on how they dress and how much they support their husbands. The Guardian’s recently published piece focusing on Zahra Rahnavard does not differ much from this norm. However, the […]

Salam waleykum, readers. It’s with a heavy heart that I spread the word about Delara Darabi’s execution. She was executed today, on May 1st, according to news reports. There isn’t a lot out there, but here’s a linkup of all the news stories at this time: Amnesty International Stop Child Executions Save Delara Blog There […]

For a relatively high-brow TV channel, BBC4 is known for providing top quality programs and dramas. So when the BBC commemorated the 30th anniversary of Islamic Revolution in Iran, I became glued to the channel’s string of intriguing documentaries on all things Iranian, post-1979. There were plenty on Iran-US nuclear politics and the fall of […]

It has been 30 years since the Islamic Revolution in Iran and Western media has a slew of various features looking at Iran. The subject of many of these features is Iranian women and, the common themes in these stories are that Iranian women have made some progress, but that more progress has to be […]

This was originally published on ISNA and Payvand. It has been edited for clarity. The first award for female Iranian poets will be awarded in the week of December 21-27 (first week of the Iranian month of Dey).   According to the news agency ISNA, in the news conference held on November 23rd, seven works […]