July-December 2005
Archive

MUTILATION
Kaalaaye masdoom

Damaged goods: Circumcision
Jahanshah Rashidian, translated by Ario Dadmehr

TORTURE
Masaleye shekanjeh

The issue of torture
Ramin Kamran

RECOVERY
Back in Bam

Photo essay: Bam two years after the devastating quake
Hamed Noori & Babak Borzouyeh

REVIEW
Feminist discourse

Books by Parvin Paidar & Margot Badran
Masoud Kazemzadeh

The two books under review are among an emerging body of scholarship in Middle East studies that utilize Western social scientific concepts of gender, class and ideology to challenge the aforementioned paradigms. They criticize Orientalist, modernization, and neo-Orientalist scholars for their essentialist notions of Islam. Instead, they argue that there are numerous and conflicting Islamic groups and states, and therefore, that the view of Islam as coherent and homogeneous is false. They criticize the dependency and neo-Marxist scholarship for ignoring the saliency, if not the centrality, of gender and patriarchy in the analysis of Middle Eastern polities.

LIFE
Desperate husbands

Lively conversations during afternoon tea
Farrokh A. Ashtiani

While we were chatting about a clever trick by the Brits, my friend’s wife brought up the issue of human rights violations in Iran and the lack of any respect for gays and lesbians rights in Iran as has been discussed by the BBC -the voice box of the British government. A bit puzzled I asked her why is it that BBC wants to promote the gay rights in Iran, and how come nobody is advocating the heterosexual rights in Iran? Are Iranians guaranteed civil rights so much so that we can now shift our focus to gays and lesbians? This did not go well with my friend’s wife and she said that heterosexuals are the majority so they don’t need protection.

CHARACTER
The Ahmadinejad in us

I am not sure what exactly is it about Mr. Ahmadinejad’s recent anti-Jewish pronouncements that grate on me. Is it his courage that speaks truth to power and all those who have turned the cause of Zionism and Jewish imperialism into a sacred cow? Or is it that he has managed to tear the curtains of hypocrisy and show to the world an elemental aspect of the psyche of majority of Iranians that is decidedly anti-Jew, if not vocal and in public, then in the quiet and private? Or is that his statements make a mockery of each of the three reasons that most Iranians of my generation always offered as evidence that Iranians are not Jew-haters.

MARRIAGE
Darse ebrat

Marrying off young Iranian girls to men living abroad
Mina Azadparast

IMMIGRATION
First the bad news

New U.S. law targets Iranians and other Immigrants -- if passed
Raha Jorjani

There is a new law before Congress that will have a devastating impact on Iranian immigrants.  In 1996, there was a wave of new legislation that expanded the kinds of crimes that would make non-citizens deportable and made detention mandatory for many.  The effects of the anti-immigrant 1996 laws are still being deeply felt by immigrant communities. But just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse... they did.  Today, there is a new bill, HR 4437, that immigrant rights advocates are calling the most dangerous piece of legislation that they have seen since 1996.  

HOMOSEXUALITY
Beyond bounds

A brief history of male homosexuality in Islamic culture
Keyan Keihani

The lack of consistent information pertaining to Islam and homosexuality is generating a global indifference in a world where gender norms are deeply internalized. The modern attitude in Islamic countries has not been constructively explored, let alone recognized through a homosexual perspective. In this paper, I will confer the historical significance regarding homosexuality and analyze the contemporary dynamics of gays in Saudi Arabia and Iran while exploring the belief that it is not the existence of same-sex sexual relations that is new, but rather their association with essentialist sexual identities. Furthermore, I will derive parallels from within the Saudi Arabian and Iranian penal codes and note their prevalence with regards to Islamic law.

IDEAS
Helping hand

Giving women inside Iran a fair chance to gain their rights
Golbarg Bashi

Seeing those bruised women that day in Shiraz (my mother’s hometown), who looked at me with a glimmer of hope, shattered my solid none-conformist secular dogma, it broke my heart, thinking of it even 2 years on makes me sob uncontrollably and crushes my soul. It was in the tears of those innocent women, in their heart-rending pleas in my own mother’s Shirazi accent that I re-realised that comforting, bandaging and saving these women, women who cannot immigrate to Canada or Sweden, even if I have to do it by operating in a gender-apartheid is worth it all. Of course we can do more, and we are doing more, in almost every field and outside the realm of religion too. How wonderful would it not be if we could unite in solidarity and strengthen our joint-efforts to help our fellow sisters?

LIFE
Park Mellat by night

Death of an addict
Parham

Last year around exactly the same time, I was passing by Park Mellat when I ran into a similar scene. The man was dying in the cold on the sidewalk opposite the park -- in fact at first I thought he was dead -- and people were just passing by. I wished I had my camera so I could tape the scene and send it to you. He was just skin and bones, literally. I stopped to call emergency with my mobile phone, but people advised me not to. They were saying that the police would harass me endlessly if I did. Eventually, some young guys also gathered. They tried to stop police cars that were passing by, one of which didn't stop, the second did but left after a minute saying they'd send for help. They didn't.

WOMEN
A man and women's rights

CIelebrating the writings and research of Hammed Shahidian who had a laconic commitment to women's rights
Samira Mohyeddin

On November 26, 2005, colleagues, friends, family, and admirers came together at the University of Toronto to honour the memory and legacy of scholar, professor, and activist, Dr. Hammed Shahidian. Organized by friends and colleagues of Shahidian's, Dr. Shahrzad Mojab and Dr. Haideh Moghissi, the memorial had a very charged atmosphere. Meaning, there was an overwhelming awareness of the loss that both academics and activists of social justice have encountered. Charged, because the memorial was a testimonial of how Shahidian's writings on the oppression of women in Iran have contributed and paved paths to area's of inquiry that have gone against the dominant narratives in the academy.

LITERATURE
Feminist ink

The “boom” in prose writing by Iranian women authors in the 1990s within the context of the situation of women in contemporary Iran
Golbarg Bashi

In this essay a history of Iranian women’s social and literary developments as well as their struggle for emancipation will be discussed. This is done firstly, in order to give an evident picture of their restrictions and progresses, which are matters that go hand in hand with discovering the reasons behind women’s flourishment in prose writing in post-Khomeini Iran. Secondly, a presentation of the historical background is necessary to consider, for a better understanding of the present developments in women’s literature. Thus, I believe it is useful to take a deeper look at Iran’s historical background where these literary developments are in-rooted.

CHILDREN
Khane-ye Kudak-e Nasser Khosrow

The hours that I have spent in this school were some of the sweetest I have experienced since I left the country many years ago >>> Photos
Samineh Baghcheban

For many years now I have regretted the fact that you can't see Mount Damavand from the city any more. Pollution is unrelenting. But on this trip I did not waste my time searching for the old Damavand view. I looked for what was there. And I was happy to visit Khane-ye Kudak-e Nasser Khosrow, which was one of the highlights of my trip. Khane-ye Kudak-e Nasser Khosrow is a center run by Society for the Protection of Children's Rights. It provides education and other services for Afghan and Indian immigrant children, and for undocumented Iranian children. The latter group are called bacheha-ye khiyabani who do not have birth certificates (shenasnameh) and cannot enroll in regular schools.

COVERS
How to kill your inner-mullah

Books we'd like to send in circulation
Anonymous

RIGHTS
Terrorizme "mehrvarz"

Ahmadinjead, Akbar Ganji & terrorism
Massoud Noghrekar

RIGHTS
Leaders not martyrs

Why we should care about Akbar Ganji
Nema Milaninia

It has been four months since Ganji stopped his hunger strike. In those four months, there have been numerous reports indicating that Ganji is continuously being tortured. Nevertheless, the world's elite and intellectuals continue to remain passive on his release and the release of other political prisoners. In fact, America's major newspapers contain little to nothing about Ganji's plight, but play day-to-day predictions on Iran's nuclear activities. Like Ganji, hundreds of writers and journalists have been detained in Iran's prisons for their political writings. Cooperation with the Iranian government and rapprochement should not be conditioned on Iran's nuclear and terrorism record. It should begin once the Iranian government begins taking sincere steps to promote and protect human rights for all its citizens.

FRIEND
Keeping going

Losing Parvin Paidar all too soon
Afsaneh Najmabadi

When in fall 2002 Parvin told me that her melanoma had returned, after a twenty-year lapse, I could not but think it must be a mistake. Our friendship had its beginnings about the same time as her first bout of struggle with melanoma. How could it have returned to end our friendship? How could a mere dysfunction of a gene ruin a most precious life?

FEMINISM
Nimeye Paidar

Parvin Paidar enriched our feminist scholarship and struggles for equal rights, democracy, freedom and justice
Nayereh Tohidi

Parvin was a coalition builder rather than a divisive ideologue. As a person she came from love, understanding and empathy rather than hatred and vengeance toward those who differed with her ideologically or even had wronged her and other seculars. She was free from rigid dogmas and blinding prejudices and sectarianism, the attributes that were rare during the early years of post-revolutionary Iran when the theocratic dogmas and repressive policies of the Islamist government had left very little room for dialogue, tolerance, and pluralism.

HOMOSEXUALITY
Meet arguments with arguments

Free speech and democracy
Hamid Karimianpour

Sexual autonomy is to me a profoundly moral question. It is about respect for human worth and dignity regardless of a person‚s sexual orientation. It may be a hard philosophical question to account for the notions of human worth, dignity, and autonomy. But it is not hard to see that societies which do not place human worth above and beyond sexual orientation tend to be more repressive and intolerant and totalitarian. However, the point here is that [anyone] is fully entitled to articulate his opinion. Simply because some people may dislike his statements can hardly be a ground for censorship.

GIVING
Not enough

Is it really sufficient to give what we could spare?
Zohreh Khazai Ghahremani

I try not to think of God’s power and how easy it would be for Him to heal the survivors and provide them with comfort. It isn’t my place to question disasters and why a Muslim nation, in a town called Islamabad and during the month of Ramadan had to endure such a tragedy. Besides, each time I’ve asked such questions in the past, I heard the same old answer, “It’s a test!” Nonreligious as I may be, I have too much respect to say anything that could be misconstrued as “Kofr.” I tell myself there has to be a better place beyond this life, that’s why God takes the good, the poor and needy so fast and in such astronomical numbers. Then again, maybe this is a test. Maybe God wants to see how far we would go to help our own kind.

INTERNET
Ertebaat beyne liberalhaa

Welcome to IranLiberal.com
Hassan Behgar

RIGHTS
Man faghat yek koodak boodam

I was only a child. A Jewish child.
Javid Kahen

CAN DO
Pink strike

Building a peaceful non-violent national strike
Ali Mostofi

The silent majority of Iran derives its Spirit from peaceful ways. We are sons and daughters of Zoroaster and Cyrus the Great. We do not need to create uncivilized change. We can create a change in which all Iranians can live with each other. The next time you speak to an armed Islamist tell him or her, why are you carrying that gun? Tell them we do not want to harm you. We want peaceful change. Tell him that your guns cannot get us out our houses, to make bread for you. "What are you going to do? You cannot fight 60 million loved ones! So listen to us." It is really quite simple. All human societies have used this method, and it does not take a genius to accept it. But we are still finding people who will go out and create little resistances and die in opposition.

RIGHTS
Writing out terror

I write to record those lives and these tears
Hammed Shahidian

This nightmare produces a collage in my mind—memories lose their chronological order.  Was Jame‘eh banned before Iranian News?  So many names, so many.  How can they be redeemed in our historical memory as other than yet-other-examples in the bleak record of the ruling Islamists?  The more I try to maintain an order of events, the more I flounder.  Names get mixed up, dates mingle.  So many detentions, then releases, then detentions again.  So many suspensions, then temporarily permissions to reappear, then suspensions again.  An author in Tehran, many others in provincial cities.  A magazine in a metropolitan city, many more in Tehran.  So widespread this suppression that its volume becomes a factor in assessing its form and content.  Names re- and recur, becoming “just another name” beside their own names.  Yet memory must honor those silenced by terror, I tell myself.  They must be remembered.

THINKER
Man of the enlightenment

Hammed Shahidian, 1959-2005
Yassamine Mather

I first met Hammed in February of 1985 in Boston, when he was studying for  Ph.D at Brandeis University. The title of his thesis was: The Woman Question in the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979. I was on a visit to all branches of the supporter groups of the leftist Fedayin Minority, trying to explain a series of dreadful events in the Kurdistan Branch of this organisation.This was the start of a friendship that lasted until his premature death. Throughout these 20 years, it appeared as if whatever political turn I took, whatever mistake I made, Hammed was with me. I am not sure if this was a form of political allegiance or because he didn't want to end a lifelong friendship.

RIGHTS
Deeg beh deeg...

Torture under the Shah and the Islamic Republic
Massoud Noghrekar

IRAN
Inspirational soul

Photo essay: There is tremendous goodness in Iran that has not gone away even with the daily struggles people face
Fariba Amini

RIGHTS
Bahai setizi va tahrifaate taarikhi

My critique of a paper on the Bahai fatith
Seyed Alavi

DEBATE
Pajooheshgar yaa kaargozaare regime?

On the IWSF women's conference in Vienna
Shadi Amin

EULOGY
Dasti miyaane deshneh o del neest

In memory of Hamid Hajizadeh, "the smallest victim" of the chain murders in Iran
Massoud Noghrekar

DEBATE
Pragmatic with patriarchy

Policing of the IWSF women's conference
Samira Mohyeddin

I am writing to you with regards to some of the comments that I have read over the summer regarding the IWSF conference in Vienna, and the so-called "rude" behaviour of some of its participants. I wanted to add my voice to this debate because the majority of responses have alluded to the younger generation of feminists, both inside and outside of Iran, who might be put off from attending this conference because of such behaviour. I want to weigh in on this notion because I believe that this is quite a distorted representation of the younger generation of Iranian feminists, particularly those in the diaspora who are sick and tired of wishy-washy academics that do not address the reality of Iran's theocratic system of governance.

SACRIFICE
Qorbani

Photo essay: Sacrificing sheep
Aidin Fathalizadeh

RIGHTS
Naghd-e "Bahaiat dar Iran"

A review of a book published on the history of the Bahai faith in Iran
Kavian Sadeghzadeh Milani

DEBATE
Stop the politics of labeling

The only way to protect it is to open our minds and the doors of the Iranian Women's Studies Foundation conferences
Halleh Ghorashi

Being part of the last Iranian Women's Studies Foundation (IWSF) conference in Vienna, experiencing the clash of ideas and positions there, and explaining it over and over again to my friends and relatives gave me the idea to write about the event. However, this idea remained in my mind because of the complexity of the events: there is just so much to analyze and to say. The recent discussions on the Net have not given me the chance or time to postpone my idea. Let me start by writing about the way I experienced the clashes.

IDEAS
Oppression Olympics

The peaceful exchange of ideas is the soil in which the very best periods, movements, and aspects of human civilization have historically taken root
Maziar Shirazi

While these 'progressives' preach tolerance and radical thinking, they end up being just like any other group of dogmatic people: aggressive, ignorant, and prejudiced or patronizing towards the whole world. They cannot be questioned, their views cannot evolve, and they don't have time for people who they view as less informed and naive, namely everybody else. In fact, they're so much better and smarter than everyone that should you try to put your own perspective out there, they don't believe that you have the right to finish what you are saying if they disagree. They actually have the right to interrupt you, to call you names, to associate you with the enemy's end of the ideological spectrum, because being able to silence and ostracize others when you disagree with them is how they construe what true freedom means.

KATRINA
Shame on me, America

Katrina has blown through our homes with its secrets that we have hidden in our closets for so long and we are left standing naked to the world
Babak Morvarid

Hurricane Katrina has in its wake, uncovered the fact that our present day American lacks leadership, sound judgment and foresight, lacks compassion for its poor and that often times in our country, the racial divide and the economic divide go hand in hand. The fact that in the modern world, in the United States of America, its wealth and power unmatched in the history of man, 28% of the people of the great city of New Orleans should live below the poverty level and that over 80% of those poorest are black is a shocking and perhaps a more shameful fact than the devastation of the hurricane, or its size and magnitude.

LITERATURE
Strange times, my dear

Video clips: Nahid Mozaffari and Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak at a book reading in Cody's Booksore in Berkeley
Jahanshah Javid

DEATH ROW
Let's save a life

How many thousands of us are in the United States? Is it too much to ask that 1,000 of us to $20.00 each toward freeing this woman?
Azam Nemati

About two weeks ago, I saw the link in Zanane Iran featuring information about a woman by the name of M.A who sits on death row and will be executed unless she can pay “blood money” to the family of the man she killed. My first reaction was of sorrow and anger (not for the man at all). I ended up contacting Sanam Dolatshahi the contact person for Zanane Iran in the United States so I could get information to put the minds of the skeptics at ease. I was inspired to share what I feel and envision with all of you hoping that some of you will be inspired to help this cause.

KATRINA
TIM RUSSERT (Meet the Press):  And we are back. Jefferson Parish President Broussard, let me start with you.  You just heard the director of Homeland Security's explanation of what has happened this last week.  What is your reaction?...
MR. BROUSSARD:  I'm telling you most importantly I want to thank my public employees...
MR. RUSSERT:  All right.
MR. BROUSSARD:  ...that have worked 24/7.  They're burned out, the doctors, the nurses.  And I want to give you one last story and I'll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me.  The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything.  His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son?  Is somebody coming?"  And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you.  Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday.  Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday.  Somebody's coming to get you on Friday."  And she drowned Friday night.  She drowned Friday night.
MR. RUSSERT:  Mr. President...
MR. BROUSSARD:  Nobody's coming to get us.  Nobody's coming to get us.  The secretary has promised.  Everybody's promised.  They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences.  For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody >>> Read

KATRINA
That same old wind just keeps on blowin'

The truth is, the visuals between the floods in Mozambique and Katrina's disaster are relatively the same
Tala Dowlatshahi

The visuals we see in Louisiana reflect the lawlessness and anger that come with being treated as animals in a society that prides itself as the "Great Savior." It took President Bush nearly fice days to go and meet with families. He did, to his credit, do a "fly-by" on day two of the disaster. Nevertheless, as this tragedy unfolded, the American people began to take note of his lack of contact with "Real Americans" as his campaign team had so often pledged. Real Americans, Mr. Bush, are the African-Americans who broke their backs building this country during slave years, and now they are stuck in an institutionalized slave system that has no regard for their well-being and survival. 

KATRINA
Take back America

New Orleans is a giant mirror that reflected the ever present heart of darkness whose reverberating beat echoes in the back of our consciousness
S. Pishevar

New Orleans is a wake up call for anyone who considers him or herself a true American. America has been usurped by those who do not truly believe in its highest and lofty ideals... Our moral fortitude at home has now been exposed for what it is - a house without walls. The levy's that protected America's famed moral compass broke long ago at some undefined and imprecise moment in our history and we have been blindly drowning in the ensuing flooding. It is us, the true patriots, to recover and repatch our moral fiber and commit to heal our country of the long festering wounds we have too long chosen to ignore.

WITNESS
They were our friends

Families gather to remember victims of 1988 prison massacres
Photos essay

VOICES
Vaapassin naamehaa

Parting words written by political prisoners before their execution: Remembering 17th anniversary of mass executions
Massoud Noghrekar

FICTION
Golforooshe Khavaran

Cry of freedom beyond the graves
Mahmoud Khalili

DEMOCRACY
Mr. Ganji’s ‘treasure’

Akbar Ganji should go free, but what he's advocating has long been thrown out of currency
Reza Bayegan

Akbar Ganji's case represents the vast and irreconcilable contradictions within a system that on the one hand makes a tremendous fanfare in the international arena over ostentatious ideas such as ‘A Dialogue among Civilizations’, and on the other hand cannot tolerate the writings and revelations of a second-rate journalist. Akbar Ganji also epitomizes why we are where we are today in this benighted and degrading squalor in our national history. His mental confusion typifies how the so-called educated class of our nation has made a mess of its political judgments and has failed to discriminate between woolly thinking and genuine thought.

HELP
Iranian detainees in UK
* my name is ebrahim hajiloo 29 years old from iran i am a political asylem seeker in uk and i am currently being detained at (colnbrook irc) i am on (hunger strike)since 16/08/05 because of immigration and i am on medication and i hawe heart problem too. not only they not care about it but also they stop giving my medication since 21/08/05 and i stop drinking follow that. i e-mail this to you to let you know if any thing happen to me-at least you do something about it (thank u).
* Saeid Enayat wrote: we are Iranians named by Saeid. E 31 Ebrahim. H 26, Amir.A 24 and few others Iranians who want to be unknown currently being detaind up to 9 months at Colnbrook IRC and Harmonds worth IRC and in UK. We understand that arrangements are being made for us to reasons giving by we about not being removed or deported included a fear to be killed because of political activity against Iran's goverment. Specially with new president who was/is on of the leader of terrorist groups. we do not deserve being in the detention centre any more but UK's Immigration do not care about it . We go on hunger strike from 25th of August 2005 and follow Mr Ebrahim. H who is already on strike 9 days to get our freedoms and our lives back and ask you and all world to help us. If we die here is much better than get deported and get hung in public before our family and parents eyes in IRAN. We need your help please please please. thanks

WOMEN
The hijab confrontation

On the banning of religious symbols in French government schools
Siavash Daneshvar

We do not divide society into religions, nationalities and beliefs. It is only in the present system that you witness an Imam or a mullah suddenly becoming the 'advocate' of a section of the society and turning the lives of many women and children who happen to live in a Muslim community in the heart of European democracy into hell. It is exactly these relations that pave the way for honour killings, recruit soldiers for Islam, impose different norms in the society, and terrorize people. All this is done while barricading behind the wall of 'democracy', 'freedom of religion' and 'minority rights'! This is apartheid and racism. We do not accept it. We say citizens should be equal before the law. Religion, race, and no 'minority' or 'majority' defines individuals and the civil rights of citizens.

DEMOCRACY
Where we are

Report on the extent of freedom in Iran
Freedom House

Iranians cannot change their government democratically. The most powerful figure in the Iranian government is the Supreme Leader (Vali-e-Faghih), currently Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei; he is chosen for life by the Assembly of Experts, a clerics-only body whose members are elected to eight-year terms by popular vote from a government-screened list of candidates. The Supreme Leader is commander in chief of the armed forces and appoints the leaders of the judiciary, the heads of state broadcast media, the commander of the IRGC, the Expediency Council, and half the members of the Council of Guardians. Although the president and parliament are responsible for designating cabinet ministers, the Supreme Leader exercises de facto control over appointments to the ministries of Defense, the Interior, and Intelligence.

WOMEN
Haramsaraahaaye mashregh zamin

Harems of the East
Hossein Nushazar

OPPOSITION
Adame khoshoonat betanhaaee kaarsaaz neest

Inadequacies of a purely non-violent strategy
Manuchehr Jamali

RIGHTS
Civilized indifference

Akbar Ganji could have been in Istanbul and receive more public sympathy
Farrokh A. Ashtiani

The Islamic Regime is in fact supporting and promoting Ganji’s hunger strike for one important fact -- to prove to the Iranians inside the country and most importantly to show to the thousands of Iranians abroad that “you have no voice and power.” The British have proved to us repeatedly that we can only mourn our heroes and we never get a chance to raise them to the pedestal of leadership, because first they get assassinated and most importantly we prefer shedding tears for a disaster than the elation of success. This is the doctrine of the Iranian version of Islam.

RIGHTS
Standing up

... against the corrupt system that has ruled our country for the past 26 years
Amir Nasiri

Ganji is letting us know that nothing is more beautiful than a man who stands for what he believes. He is trying to tell us that we should have the courage to stand up against the corrupt system that has ruled our country for the past 26 years. He is trying to tell us that we should find the courage and expose the cruel acts and atrocities committed by this regime. He is telling us that we should speak for everyone in Iran, who is suffering in the hand of the mullahs.

PROTEST
Naa looti

London protest against homosexual executions in Iran
Sent by E.K.

One hundred people protested outside the Iranian Embassy in London Thursday, 11 August 2005 -- coinciding with simultaneous US and European protests against Iran's "tyrannical, homophobic, misogynistic and fundamentalist regime." We condemn the execution of two teenage boys in Iran on charges involving homosexual acts.

RIGHTS
Kar shodeem

Why the lack of response to the public hanging of two boys?
Bita

What I am alluding to is the response, or lack of, to the public hanging of two young men or should I say boys, Mahmoud Asgari (16) and Ayaz Mahroni (18) at time of their execution, July 19, 2005 in Mashad, Iran. This is after serving fourteen months in prison, probably enduring more than the 280 lashes for theft, disturbing public order, and consuming alcohol. They were accused of raping another boy a few years younger than them who at the time was 13-years old. And I wonder why I haven’t heard from the people of the Iranian diaspora whether in self imposed exile, refugees, intellectuals, and millionaires speaking out against the atrocity of this act. What about this case creates such a void? Is there confusion as to the veracity of its injustice? Why the silence?

DIPLOMAT
Signed, sealed & delivered

Casting the affirmative vote for Iran in approving the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948
Fereydoun Hoveyda

It was past midnight December 10, 1948, in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations, in the Palais de Chaillot, place du Trocadero in Paris. The President 's tired voice pattered in the microphone: "52 in favor, none against, 8 abstentions. Adopted ". The rasping of his gavel was covered by a burst of applause, mainly in the public and press areas. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights had just been approved. As a the Iranian delegate looking back at that historic night I can affirm with absolute certainty that despite what cynics believed in 1948, events have vindicated the Declaration. Rights are as global as the economy and the flow of information.

RIGHTS
Haghighat-e oryan

The plain truth about Akbar Ganji and my disrobing at the Berlin conference
Parvaneh Hamidi

HUNGER STRIKE
Live!

Around 250 supporters gather in support of Akbar Ganji in front of the hospital where he has been on hunger strike
Photos

HUNGER STRIKE
Ganji's home raided

Iranian authorities have raided the house of the country's best-known dissident, Akbar Ganji
Photos

LETTER
Make the dream come true

Bloggers write an open letter "To the people of Iran" offering a new strategy to achieve democracy

OPINION
Divine violence

Scratch the surface of a Radical Islamic society and you will witness its antithesis deeply permeating its every aspect
Ardeshir Mehrdad and Yassamine Mather

The pan-Islamist movement opposes democracy in all its forms. The movement’s beliefs, class make-up and historic direction come together to reject popular sovereignty and the right of the people to determine their own destiny by majority vote. It is forced to locate the right of sovereignty above the heads of ordinary people, to make it the overarching authority that must resolve the movement’s internal and external contradictions. Divine rule, where all rights belong to god, is the only realm where there are no tensions and dissent. And it is only the divine that can give away this or that right on earth to the chosen people - whether the Islamists in question wear clerical or civilian apparel.

OPINION
Neo-leftists

The left's vision of Iran
Bahram Moghisi

What is the proper attitude within the left vis-a-vis American power? In her article, Naheed Rasa asks rhetorically, "Can we use American power to promote democracy in the region?"   However, "leftist" may be a misleading term by which to designate one who poses this rhetorical question. The right label would be "neo-conservative." Remember, the neo-conservatives were a movement of leftists and democrats who, despite their progressive social agenda, were disenchanted with the left's refusal to support the use of American power to spread "America'sàdemocratic valu¥s"ænbsp;abroad by coercive means.

DEMOCRACY
Left out

Why is the liberal/leftist discourse of the West incapable of including Iranian voices of freedom and democracy?
Naheed Rasa

Let me make this threat even more clear and even more frightening: If the Left/Liberal discourse does not address the concerns of Iranian movements for justice, democracy and freedom, it is very likely that these movements will be attracted, at least for tactical purposes, towards policies offered by Conservatives. And this does not appear to be a temporary situation. In fact, Akbar Ganji may well die one of these days, but even if he is saved, there will be others like him in the near future, and as long as our "natural allies" pay no attention to such events, we will witness the strengthening of the Conservative discourse in our midst.

RIGHTS
Dying for democracy

Akbar Ganji and the movement for freedom and an end to religious rule
Jahanshah Javid

Akbar Ganji is dying in a hospital in Tehran. He is not a prophet. He is not calling for a revolution. He is not doing George Bush a favor. He is a man who speaks his mind and is willing to die for it. But he must not die. We must do everything we can to force the authorities to let him go home. This is the democratic fight of the Iranian people. This is how democracies are built, by the people for the people, not by American soldiers for Uncle Sam.

RIGHTS
Portland's hunger strike

... in honor of Akbar Ganji
Goudarz Eghtedari

As a freelance journalist myself, I and a group of other concerned citizens in Portland, I have started a limited hunger strike as of Friday afternoon in the South Park Blocks in front of the Portland State University's library, as the sacred place of Book and Pen, in honor of Akbar Ganji and in solidarity with his wife and children who are going to be sitting in front of the United Nations' office in Tehran at the same time.

GANJI
Qasidak

Magar een azadi cheest?
Massoud Vatankhahi

INTERNET
Finding god with blinkers on
They don't want us to look out the windows through the Internet, because maybe we will find the Truth
Daryan

HUNGER STRIKE
Far cry
Photo essay: Calls for release of Akbar Ganji at San Francisco's U.N. Plaza
Jahanshah Javid

SATIRE
Stop press
Niger offers citizenship to Ganji
Peyvand Khorsandi

INTERNET
The yellow triangle
Who will be responsible for the consequences of restricting internet access in Iran?
Karan Reshad

HUNGER STRIKE
Iran's Don Quixote
Akbar Ganji has defied that claim and forced us to reflect on the glaring disconnect between what we say we want and what we are willing to do for it
Roozbeh Shirazi

IDENTITY
A Persian thing
I am tired of this Persian-Arab conversation, which I am not winning
Hossein Samiei

HUNGER STRIKE
Freedom or death
Latest photos of Akbar Ganji

HUNGER STRIKE
And Ganji decides to die
Whatever happens next I have no doubt: Ganji never dies
Sa'id Farzaneh

WOMEN
Non-Mahram
This outdated self appointed obsessive model cannot be applied to today's modern world
Jahanshah Rashidian

BERLIN
Shkastkhordegaane baaziye siyaasi
Looking back at the reaction against Akbar Ganji at the Berlin conference
Shahla Sharaf

STRUGGLE
Standing tall
I cannot but admire Akbar Ganji for the fact that he is standing so solemnly in face of dictatorship
Azad R

POLITICS
Future leaders?
Secular democrats meet in Frankfurt
Photo essay

JOURNALISM
A bitter struggle
Depriving journalists of their constitutional rights is not funny
Parastoo Dokuhaki

TRAVELERS
Unexpected connection
... at a Prague gay bar
Dario Margeli

PRISONERS
Wasting away in Evin
The UN must work to free political prisoners NOW
Amir Nasiri

HUNGER STRIKE
Day 35
More photos of Akbar Ganji

HUNGER STRIKE
Last days?
Akbar Ganji in day 33 of his hunger strike in Evin prison
Photos

IDEAS
Secularism now
We must always respect the values that pay attention to humanity irrespective of nationality, race, gender or religion
Homa Arjomand

RIGHTS
The Mandaeans
The persecution of a minority in Iran
Amnesty International - Australia

SPEECH
A fair hearing
J.S. Mill and American society in the post-9/11 era
Amir Azarvan

IDEAS
Political Islam in the heart of secular Europe
Secular values of 18th century enlightenment are slowly being replaced
Maryam Namazie

LIFE
Collective crime
When a society decides to execute a person, every member of the society becomes a murderer
Ahmad Nikoobin

POETRY
Ganji
Teacher of politics and ethics
Mohammad Ali Heydari

RIGHTS
Bahai seteezy

Anti-Bahai beliefs are on the decline among the Iranian general public
Kourosh Pouya

CIVIL SOCIETY
Save the light

Photojournalist's appeal from Kabul
Reza

HOMOSEXUALITY
Dyke March
Photo essay: Lesbian festival in San Francisco
Jahanshah Javid

HOMOSEXUALITY
Pink parade
Video clips: Lesbian festival in San Francisco
Jahanshah Javid

BOOK
Mostaz'af and Mostakbar
The idea of a classless society entered Iranian revolutionary discourse via the Marxist-Leninist left and was coded by Islamist groups
Minoo Moallem

STADIUM
Women watch football inside Azadi for first time
Photo essay
Noushin Najafi

>>> 2005 JANUARY-JUNE

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