Browse: Home / Regions / Middle East and North Africa / Iran

Iran

Basij catching them young: Iranian insights from Persian Letters

By Demdigest on August 26, 2010

Iran’s domestic turmoil and Green opposition appears to have moved beyond the mainstream media’s goldfish attention span.
But Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty continues to offer insightful reporting on Iran, not least from their blogger, Golnaz Esfandiari, whose latest item examines the new “Family Protection Bill” – a misnomer if ever there was one –  that allows [read full story]

Posted in , , , | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a response

Iran’s Green movement: a latent force – or proof that ‘despotism works’?

By Michael Allen on August 18, 2010

Has Iran’s Green Movement “effectively ceased to exist as a visible political force“? Or is it well-placed to re-emerge and take advantage of growing fissures within the Islamic Republic’s ruling conservative bloc?
Observers suggest that feuding within the dominant conservative cliques reflects the growing power of  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters in the Revolutionary Guards [read full story]

Posted in , , , , , , , | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a response

Undermining Iranian democracy: plus ça change ……

By Demdigest on August 18, 2010

“Thursday marks the anniversary of one of the most mythologized events in history, the 1953 coup in Iran that ousted Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadeq,” writes the Council on Foreign Relations’ Ray Takeyh. But while most accounts highlight US complicity in undermining that government and imposing the Shah, that prevailing narrative is fundamentally flawed, he asserts, [read full story]

Posted in , , , , | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a response

Iran’s history suggests Green opposition will re-emerge

By Demdigest on July 28, 2010

The imminent departure of John Limbert, the US administration’s leading point man on Iran, is casting further doubt on the feasibility of engaging the Islamic Republic.
But if Iran’s politically tumultuous history is any guide, the opposition Green movement will survive its current downturn, consolidate and emerge as a force for democratic change, Michael Singh argues [read full story]

Posted in , , , , , | Tagged , , | Leave a response

Iran: bazaari strike confirms regime’s shrinking social base?

By Michael Allen on July 14, 2010

As a strike by Tehran’s influential bazaari merchants enters its second week and industrial workers walk out over unpaid wages, economic grievances may yet merge with the Green opposition’s political demands to create a formidable coalition of discontent against the regime, analysts suggest.
“If ever an institution typified the blend of social and religious conservatism wrapped [read full story]

Posted in , , , , | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a response

How West should support Iran’s Green movement – an inside view

By Demdigest on July 9, 2010

Further to this item, our friends at the Project on Middle East Democracy have an interesting post  detailing suggestions for how the West can support Iran’s Green movement.
The proposals come from a piece at insideIRAN.com by Sohrab Razzaghi, former chief of political studies in the Interior Ministry and director of an NGO that works [read full story]

Posted in , , , , | Tagged , , , | Leave a response

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani reprieved?

By Demdigest on July 9, 2010

Following an international outcry, Iranian authorities have reportedly announced that a woman convicted of adultery will not be stoned to death. But her lawyer today insisted that the prospect remained real.
“I have yet to be told of any stay in implementation of the sentence,” Mohammad Mostafavi told AFP. “My client remains in prison.”
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, [read full story]

Posted in , | Tagged , , | Leave a response

Green movement ‘will bring democracy’ to Iran – eventually

By Demdigest on July 8, 2010

Green movement leader Mir Hosein Mousavi’s latest broadside against the regime came as several hundred Green movement protesters mobilized to mark the anniversary of the July 9, 1999, attack on Tehran University.
The regime orchestrated the assault on the university dorms (the 18th of Tir Disaster) in which student Ezzat Ebrahimnejad was murdered, a leading medical [read full story]

Posted in , , , , , , , , , , , | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a response

Iran’s Green movement: the best lack all conviction – and strategic diversity?

By Demdigest on June 8, 2010

Has Iran’s Green movement been gamed, lamely confronting a regime wise to its tactics and strategy? Or is the country’s democratic movement at an historic high, more robust than at any time over the past century?
The opposition Green movement peaked when, according to Tehran  mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, three million protesters took to capital’s streets [read full story]

Posted in , , , , , , , | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a response

Iran: neither realism nor idealism?

By Michael Allen on May 28, 2010

Roger Cohen witnessed a “nation of festive hope and vibrant debate” in the run-up to last year’s presidential election in Iran.
But the Islamic Republic’s suppression of the Green movement has “reduced the pre-electoral vitality to a hallucination and thoughtful intellectuals to whimpering wrecks prepared to ‘confess’ to plotting velvet revolution.”
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has [read full story]

Posted in , , , , , , , | Leave a response

Next »