Religious women will be stationed outside of Tehran's underground stations in an effort to enlighten and guide female commuters back on the straight and narrow path. The Chief of Operations of Tehran's Metro system Ali Mohammad Gholiha, told Mehr...
With the strict supposedly "moral" codes imposed on Iranian society with increasing conservatism in recent times, this latest directive - banning 'love triangles' and 'half naked men' --- issued to television programme directors this week, strikes...
Tomorrow, the Cinema Office of Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance must decide on the country's submission for the Best Foreign Language Film for the 2012 Oscars. The obvious choice would be A Separation, director Asghar Frahadi's...
Iranian publishers are reeling after measures to save money when printing the Koran backfired this week. In an attempt to make cheaper, mass distribution editions available, the Holy Book was produced and printed in China. But the copies, already...
Iran's Ministry of Culture and Guidance has this week refused publication of Nezami's Khosro and Shirin, a love story read by generations as a classic of Persian literature. Writers and publishers in Iran are well-versed in the language of the...
The sight of children too young to be working, is sadly too familiar on the streets of Iran. Selling flowers and washing car windscreens at traffic lights are frankly the less disturbing of chores bestowed upon them. (View everyday scenes in Yunes...
State media in China and Iran have both offered their two cents in response to the riots that have swept the UK over the past three days. A commentator at Communist Party mouthpiece, People's Daily, opined that this sort of chaos is precisely the...
The theme of clothing and preoccupation with exterior representation continues to dominate every day Iranian existence. We've seen the sustained crackdown on individual expression for Iranian citizens extending to hairstyle and dyeing, eyebrow...
Earlier this week I was working with the ballet maestro Jean-Pascal Cabardos, who trained Billy for Billy Elliot. Not that Little Black Fish has been dancing en pointe (we were working on texts), though I have indulged in the ballet craze that has...
I've been reflecting over the last ten days on FIFA's ban on the participation of Iran's women's football team in the Olympic games qualifiers, for failing to observe international football dress codes --- Iran's Islamic strip included a...