If it’s Tuesday in Tehran, it must be time to protest. At least that’s been the case in Iran for the past couple of weeks, and probably will continue to be true during the next couple as well. And one of the best reasons to protest is on behalf of the rights of women. “Tuesdays [...]
Never before has the cruelty of Iranian criminal justice system been more evident than now. The International Committee Against Stoning reported Monday that the Iranian government has given the go-ahead for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani to be executed for adultery. At the same time, Nasrin Sotoudeh–a prominent human rights lawyer incarcerated in Iran’s notorious Evin prison–has [...]
Memoirs by political prisoners shed light on a world unknown to most of us–a world of forced confession, threats and psychological torture. American journalist Roxana Saberi’s new “Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran”, an account of 100 days in Iran’s notorious Evin prison, serves as a small window into the closed world [...]
Women Without Men, a novella by Shahrnush Parsipur, was condemned to oblivion by Iranian authorities soon after it was published in 1988. But 22 years later, Women without Men lives on, and recently has been innovatively adapted into a film by well-known visual artist Shirin Neshat. The film will open in New York on May [...]
Censorship is not new in Iran, but since the controversial presidential election in June 2009 it has been revived by state authorities in an unprecedented manner. The Ministry of Intelligence now views websites and social networking sites as enemies of the state. Talking to Voice of America or Persian BBC TV is a criminal act [...]
Iranian authorities confiscated poet Simin Behbehani’s passport today–International Women’s Day–as Behbehani, 82, was on her way to Paris to read her poems at a conference on women’s issues. Such treatment is sad but not surprising: Iran’s state prisons are filled with feminists, journalists, student activists and labor organizers who allegedly “threatened national security” by peacefully [...]
