While the Arab spring unfolds all round them, the citizens of Iran seem condemned to a lonely purgatory. Their 1979 revolution promised refuge from the Shah's roller-coaster rule, but the Islamic Republic that replaced it is beset by an equally secular malaise. A soaring murder rate (the country's top weightlifter was a recent victim), family breakdown and chronic levels of personal debt are standard topics of conversation in homes and on buses that ply the capital. The country's most accomplished filmmaker depicts a society that is built on deception and mired in strife. At a middle-class dinner party, a female guest talks casually of driving her car off a cliff.
The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, disapproves of all this Cassandraism. Under his guidance, he believes, Iran has become internationally respected — especially for its refusal to give up a controversial nuclear programme in the face of international sanctions. Khamenei demands an end to ‘negativist' statements from the country's officials, which breed ‘hopelessness'.
Iran's leaders put a stop to participatory politics when they rigged the 2009 presidential election in favour of the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and crushed the opposition ‘green' movement that rose up in response. Its figureheads, Mir Hussain Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, were put under house arrest last winter. But the silencing of organised opposition has not bro... >>>
Person | About | Day |
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نسرین ستوده: زندانی روز | Dec 04 | |
Saeed Malekpour: Prisoner of the day | Lawyer says death sentence suspended | Dec 03 |
Majid Tavakoli: Prisoner of the day | Iterview with mother | Dec 02 |
احسان نراقی: جامعه شناس و نویسنده ۱۳۰۵-۱۳۹۱ | Dec 02 | |
Nasrin Sotoudeh: Prisoner of the day | 46 days on hunger strike | Dec 01 |
Nasrin Sotoudeh: Graffiti | In Barcelona | Nov 30 |
گوهر عشقی: مادر ستار بهشتی | Nov 30 | |
Abdollah Momeni: Prisoner of the day | Activist denied leave and family visits for 1.5 years | Nov 30 |
محمد کلالی: یکی از حمله کنندگان به سفارت ایران در برلین | Nov 29 | |
Habibollah Golparipour: Prisoner of the day | Kurdish Activist on Death Row | Nov 28 |
Pass"port" of the beholder!
by پندارنیک on Tue Aug 23, 2011 04:47 PM PDTThat body of water has no nationality. None has.
It's the PERSIAN Gulf not "The Gulf"
by BoosBoos on Tue Aug 23, 2011 04:45 PM PDTThe News Agency can't even stay true to historical facts in choosing its name.