Eight years ago my colleagues and I set out to see what school life was like for 11-13 year olds around the world. I went to Iran, and spent several days with girls at a Tehran school. The building was a large house, once home to a wealthy Iranian...
You may have seen Superman in action, flying in to join Iranian protesters on the streets of Tehran in the current 900th anniversary issue of Action Comics, its already being reprinted. Disappointingly, the superhero doesn't achieve much in...
I’ve just finished reading a piece on Global Voices about the controversial issue of owning a dog in Iran. With so many more fundamental freedoms curbed, you’d be forgiven for laughing this off. Last year an Iranian cleric issued a fatwa against...
Iranian workers are denied the basic right of assembly but each year they valiantly mark May Day. Iran’s labour movement has a long and courageous history: despite the fact that workers have no right to form unions or express their grievances, many...
Nasrin Sotoudeh, 47, writer, lawyer, and women and children’s rights activist, has been awarded PEN’s Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. The award honours international literary figures who have been persecuted or imprisoned for exercising...
A sense of a time that slipped between our fingers, or a consciousness, of a strength retained and a power that it is still within our grasp…one feeling evolved into the other watching this historic clip (Facebook) from 1979 on the first day of a...
What would you do if the music you wanted to make were forbidden ? What if someone in power didn't want it heard? Would you be silent? Or would you play it louder ? I first heard the voice of Mahsa Vahdat at the height of the people’s uprising in...
A week ago today, Iranians took to the streets once again, unafraid of arrest, tear gas, batons, and bullets. Their online counterparts work in tandem, airing minute to minute observations as they receive them, and 20 February was no exception. At...
As a tribute to Saneh Jaleh, who two days ago lost his life in the fight for freedom of expression, I have translated a short story written by him. Saneh Jaleh, a 26-year-old theatre student at Tehran's Arts University was killed by the regime's...
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s praise of the Egyptian people and encouragement of Cairo's protesters in the past two weeks have a satirical edge; especially given the pair's violent wrath towards their own...