BAHAI
Education prohibited in the "Holy Land"
by Khosro Shemiranie
I never met her, however, the picture her sister draws of her makes me feel I have known her for ages. In all the photos I have seen of her, she wears an innocent smile. A smile now captive in a prison cell in Evin. Nooshin was teaching a group of young students who according to “The law" are not permitted to seek higher education in Iran and because of this crime she is in prison today. Nooshin was once one of those youth, herself, who were denied education in that country
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GOLSHIFTEH
‘Do you think she’s going to come? Do you think she’ll be here?’ repeatedly asked some friends of mine I happened to bump into in the queue for
The Patience Stone – an Afghan film I had been eagerly awaiting ever since I set my paws on the TIFF brochure some weeks ago – as I eyed a mass of conspicuously Iranian-looking faces, fingering my ticket. Waiting in line, it seemed the audience that evening was more interested in catching a glimpse of Iranian actress Golsfhiteh Farhani than seeing a film from one of Afghanistan’s most renowned novelists and directors, Atiq Rahimi
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POETRY
to the children of Gaza and Ashkelon
My neighbor and her grandchildren
Are going to the zoo
To visit the crocodiles of the Nile river
Who, everyday after lunch
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شعر
گفتند دلی نیست که ویران نشد از عشق
با عشق عجین گشت و پریشان نشد از عشق
گفتم که ندیدم به جهان هر که غمی داشت
از درد بجان آمد و درمان نشد از عشق
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Places where religious thought reign supreme will always remain debauched and hesitant infested with internecine wars and disasters
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Norway, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Ireland and Japan
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