Human Rights Watch warns today that "dozens" of political activists and reporters arrested four years ago remain in detention, while two of the candidates in 2009 --- Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi --- endure their 28th month of house arrest. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported earlier this month that Iran is holding at least 40 j ... Continue reading »
I was raised in a holy city populated by Mosques with tall minarets, parochial schools, clerics with black and white turbines, and plenty of shrines of allegedly decedents of original Imams. The youthful life was quite simplistic, immensely fate-driven and faith-stricken. Being born to and raised in an absolutely devout family left me with no choic ... Continue reading »
For centuries, leaders of what is now modern-day Iran have evoked the legendary Cyrus Cylinder – the legal instrument dating back to 539 B.C.E. by which Cyrus II, the greatest of the Persian emperors, legitimized his rule, promoted civil and religious tolerance and even permitted Jews to return to Jerusalem, where they would rebuild the Second Temp ... Continue reading »
A view of Sheikh Zayed Road - a major highway in Dubai that has been the site of rapid urban development. (Image credit: Al Miller) Passing remarks, it turns out, can make a lasting impression. I had come to appreciate such remarks while conducting my dissertation fieldwork in Dubai during the course of 2010. That year saw me regularly engage ... Continue reading »
It is a generally assumed that the Shah’s downfall led to the severing of ties between Israel and Iran, which up until that point resembled a love story. However, both Iran’s intellectual elite and the rest of the nation drastically changed their views of the Jewish State after 1967. Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, and his wife, Queen Far ... Continue reading »
Is this part of our Iranian culture? Is it anti-Iranian to say that this picture is degrading women and downright revolting? DEATH TO THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC The day of reckoning is drawing nearer ... Continue reading »
Cambridge Dictionaries Online defines Altruism as "willingness to do things which bring advantages to other people, even if it results in disadvantage for yourself". In Persian, Altruism may be translated as Enssaan Doosti, Bashar Doosti, Nou@ Dousti (in which @ stands for the letter Ain), Az Khod Gozashtegi, Eissaar, etc. Oxford Dictionary identif ... Continue reading »
In ancient Iran, we knew ecology. Iran and the Earth, were God and Heaven, as religions nowadays call it. We did not bury people and just a few Emperors' tombs are buried above ground. Knowledge of hydrology was developed in Iran. Look at Persepolis and see its sewage system. Look at qanats.
So for thousands of years our land was clean. Our river ... Continue reading »
Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator and a presidential candidate, says that offers from six world powers demand far more short-term sacrifices of his government than the Islamic Republic considers reasonable or reciprocal.
The current offer from the so-called P5+1 group (the US, Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany) requires Iran ... Continue reading »
“There is no such thing as the Palestinian people.” - Golda Meir Rashid Ismail Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. The editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies, Khalidi is also the author of a nu ... Continue reading »
Due to inactivity you will be logged out in seconds.
Would you like to continue your session?
Your session has expired!