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Iranian Film ‘A Separation’ Wins Worldwide Acclaim

The World — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:30:33 +0000

The Iranian film, A Separation, has been racking up awards at film festivals around the world since its release last year, most recently garnering a Golden Globe. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Khatereh Sheibani, Professor of Persian Literature and culture at York University in Toronto, about the film success and how that success is viewed in the director’s home country, Iran.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: An Iranian film called “A Separation” is on the short list for a Best Foreign Language Oscar nomination, we’ll find out next Tuesday if it actually gets nominated, but the Iranian movie is already a winner. It bagged the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film last Sunday. The film is about a couple in Tehran who are about to separate because they can’t agree on where to live: the wife wants to leave Iran with the couple’s daughter, the husband wants to stay, to take care of his ailing father.

[Speaking Farsi]

Werman: Khatereh Sheibani is a professor of Persian Literature and Culture at York University in Toronto. She says the film was very successful in Iran as well.

Khatereh Sheibani: In fact, “The Separation” was the best-selling movie in the history of Iranian Cinema. So, at the box office it was a huge success before even winning any international awards.

Werman: Now, the film, “A Separation”, it’s about a couple that’s on the verge of separating, as we said earlier. And it’s a peek into Iranian society and tensions between a modern secular family and a more conservative and religious one. And the director Asghar Farhadi has been asked if his film should be viewed as a political statement, on Iranian society, and he had this to say:

[Speaking Farsi]

Interpreter: If what you mean by political film is a film that follows a certain ideology or works as a political manifesto or defends a certain group, then, no. But if what you mean by a political film is a film that has social roots and includes society and its issues, then yes, this could be a political film.

Werman: That’s Iranian director Asghar Farhadi speaking there, through an interpreter. Miss Sheibani, how do you react to his statement? Do you think he’s trying to be careful?

Sheibani: You know they have every right to be careful, if they are making this inside Iran. But this is not a film that promotes any particular ideology, any particular world view. In fact this film is about the relativity of truth. You can’t say which person is right, which world view is right.

Werman: The main characters in the movie are conflicted about where they should live: in Iran, or should they leave the country? How many Iranians have on their minds this question of “Do I stay or do I go?”

Sheibani: Unfortunately there are many, many people who have this question now, in their mind. As you know, right after the revolution, there was a huge immigration towards Western countries. Especially for the secular middle-class people this is a seminal question, whether to leave, or to stay in the country.

Werman: So, obviously a lot of people in Iran relate to Mr. Farhadi’s film. But how do you explain its popularity in the United States?

Sheibani: You know, there has been a lot of talking about Iran in [the] media for the past few years. So, in the absence of foreign journalists in Iran and in the absence of having a real image of Iran, they’re turning to movies to see how this country looks like. I even heard from some Westerner friends who told me, “We wanted to see how a middle-class household looks like in Iran”. So it could be one aspect of the film that Americans could relate to.

Werman: Khatereh Sheibani in Toronto, the author of The Poetics of Iranian Cinema. Thank you very much!

Sheibani: Thank you!

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Zahra’s Paradise: A Graphic Novel Explores Iran’s Political Problems

The World — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:35:53 +0000

Zahra’s Paradise is the new graphic novel by an Iranian-American author. For security reasons, he uses only his first name “Amir.” He tells host Marco Werman how he created a webstrip based on the images streaming out of the Iranian protests in 2009.

Read two chapters of Zahra’s Paradise

Marco Werman: Even if you set aside the lethal intrigue that surrounds its nuclear program, Iran remains a mystery to most Westerners. A new book titled “Zahra’s Paradise” offers readers a glimpse of life in the country. It’s a graphic novel by an Iranian-American author. For security reasons, he goes only by his first name, Amir. The book is set in Tehran during the disputed 2009 elections and the protests that followed. It centers around a mother’s quest to find her missing son. The author says the graphic novel’s title is a reference to a specific place in Iran.

Amir: “Zahra’s Paradise” is the name of the main cemetery. It’s a vast, vast space outside Tehran, and since the revolution of 1979, it has really been the place where Iranians have been burying their loved ones. This was, you know, both people who were killed during the revolution, after the revolution, all the victims of the Iran-Iraq war ended there. So in a sense, it’s the place where all Iranians come together and grieve together, and then you realize that in the religious context, you know, the cemetery is actually not just the place where you take the dead. It’s actually the entrance into the heavens. Zahra is the name of the prophet’s daughter. So there’s this tremendous irony that this paradise has come to represent, really, the grief of an entire nation.

Werman: Your book began as a web comic and has been serialized online in black and white strips three times a week, beginning in early 2010. Why did you use that format?

Amir: What the internet allowed us to do was to communicate in real time which meant that as my partner, Khalil, was doing the drawing, we were putting them up, and what that meant was that all the traditional barriers to publishing, which were sort of barriers of space and time and language, were gone. We were actually interacting with our audience live and that was a whole other way of really publishing and presenting the ideas.

Werman: The fact that it’s a comic and it’s literally in black and white, were you worried that it would turn the story into almost a polemic, you know, with good guys and bad guys and maybe less nuance you’d find in a novel?

Amir: Not really. I think one of the things that we’ve done in Zahra’s Paradise is to show the contradictions in people, to show the way in which people are forced, by circumstance and situation, into various political positions and then change those positions. So the black-and-whiteness of it actually allowed us to show it as a collage.

Werman: Who has seen this web comic around the globe, and do you have any sense of how many Iranians inside Iran have had access to it?

Amir: We could see through Google that we had readership in at least twenty different cities in Iran and we started getting feedback from people there. Around the world, Zahra’s Paradise has I think been read in about something like eighty to ninety countries. So the web made it really much more of a global phenomenon than anything else.

Werman: Is it risky for Iranians to look at Zahra’s Paradise in Iran on the internet?

Amir: You know, I don’t think they’re monitored at that level, but we started gettting notes from people inside Iran telling us to be careful. So I know that people were reading it there. I think, you know, they need to take precautions and things, but they were reading it.

Werman: Amir, let me ask you about two things in the book that I’m curious about. Some of the most riveting images are these public hangings that happen in Tehran using construction cranes. Now we see these images of bustling traffic in downtown Tehran and two men dangling from crane hooks. Why does the regime use cranes to hang people?

Amir: It’s a great question. How is it that the crane, which is something that’s supposedly for construction, become this instrument for hanging people? How did the crane become a symbol in a way like the hand of God that sort of yanks Iranians off the ground and hangs them? How did it become a symbol, really, or Iran and Islam. The crane, of course, is very, you know, it’s kind of like having mobile executioners and the idea is to strike fear in the populous. It’s to show how much more powerful the state is,a relative to the people.

Werman: Tell us what’s on the last thirteen pages of the book. It’s in the tiniest type imaginable. I had to put on my reading glasses and then use a magnifying glass. Visually, it packs quite a wallop.

Amir: That’s the list of sixteen thousand, nine hundred and one Iranians who have been killed since the revolution of 1979. Either assassinated or executed or vanished and it just tells you of how deep the damage that the Islamic Republic is inflicting on the Iranian people, but it’s also a way of telling people, “No. The struggle for Iran’s future is a struggle for memory, it’s a struggle for history, it’s a struggle for truth, it’s a struggle against lies.”

Werman: Amir is the Iranian-American author of the graphic novel “Zahra’s Paradise”. He and illustrator, Khalil, use only their first name for security reasons. Amir, very good to speak with you and meet you. Thank you.

Amir: Thank you very much, Marco.

Werman: Check out a few chapters from the graphic novel at theworld.org.

Iran’s beleaguered opposition

The World — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:25:02 +0000

What began in Tunisia and spread to Egypt may now be energizing the beleaguered opposition in Iran. Thousands of anti-government protesters rallied yesterday in central Tehran. It was the first major show of strength from Iran’s opposition in more than a year but hardline members of Iran’s parliament are determined to avoid a repeat of what happened in Egypt. On Tuesday, more than 200 Iranian lawmakers called for two leading opposition politicians to be tried and put to death. Karim Sadjadpour follows Iran at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He tells anchor Lisa Mullins the regime’s resolve to crush the opposition is a short-term strategy. Download MP3

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins, and this is The World. What began in Tunisia and spread to Egypt may be energizing the beleaguered opposition in Iran. Thousands of anti-government protesters rallied yesterday in central Tehran. It was the first major show of strength from Iran’s opposition in more than a year, but hardline members of Iran’s parliament are determined to avoid a repeat of what happened in Egypt. Today, more than 200 Iranian lawmakers called for two leading opposition politicians to be tried and put to death. You’re hearing the voices of those Iranian lawmakers right now. Karim Sadjadpour, Middle East Analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, I want you to weigh in on what you just heard. That sounds like quite a dramatic scene at the Iranian parliament where the lawmakers apparently, Iranian state television showed a senior cleric up on this platform before the assembly leading the chant with a clenched fist, calling for executions of the opposition. Is this fear or resolve that we’re seeing?

Karim Sadjadpour: I think they’re trying to create an atmosphere of fear and terror, Lisa, and what’s quite remarkable is that less than six, seven years ago, the individuals whom they are now calling for their execution today were in positions of leadership. Mohammad Khatami, today they were calling for death to Mohammad Khatami, was president of the Islamic Republic for eight years. So, you see how far right the political spectrum has shifted in Iran, and I don’t think they are going to pursue even the imprisonment of these opposition leaders because they recognize that will probably be like pouring gasoline on the fire and provoking the opposition, but certainly they do want to create an atmosphere of fear and terror, and I think that the advantage they have is that the international media is not there to bear witness.

Mullins: Not there to bear witness because they simply can’t get in? The government won’t let them in?

Sadjadpour: The Iranian regime has effectively imposed a media embargo. You don’t have the CNN’s and the Al Jazeera’s and the BBC’s reporting the events that are taking place in Iran, so that makes an enormous difference psychologically for the protesters. When there’s an effective media embargo, I think people fear that this regime can get away with doing a lot more without accountability.

Mullins: Well that seemed to be what President Barack Obama had in mind today. He held a news conference earlier this morning, in fact, and he addressed specifically what’s happening in the Middle East and he seemed to be directing comments specifically to Iran as well. Let’s hear.

Barack Obama: You can’t maintain power through coercion. At some level, in any society, there has to be consent, and that’s particularly true in this new era where people can communicate – not just through some centralized government or state-run TV – but they can get on a smart phone or a Twitter account and mobilize hundreds of thousands of people.

Mullins: That’s what we heard earlier today from President Obama. Now we, of course there was a mobilization through social networking in Egypt. Could that same thing happen in Iran and somehow overcome the media blackout that the Iranian government has imposed?

Sadjadpour: It’s difficult, Lisa. I mean, I agree with President Obama’s point in the longer term that the days of dictatorial regimes ruling by coercion is not what the future foretells, but I think in the short run, this lethal marriage which Iran has at its disposal, which is oil and Islam, is a very formidable combination; and the Iranian regime’s support – its popular support – may not be very wide, but what it lacks in width it makes up for in depth, meaning you still have a lot of hard-core supporters of this government in Iran who are willing to kill on their behalf. I’m talking about the Basij militants, the Revolutionary Guardsmen, and I think in the short term, social networks – Facebook, Twitter – are no match for those who are willing to inflict violence and create atmospheres of terror.

Mullins: Karim Sadjadpour, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, thank you very much.

Sadjadpour: My pleasure, Lisa.

Iran’s cyberwar

The World — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:20:15 +0000

Cartoon by Nikahang Kowsar

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced new initiatives to improve cyber-freedom in countries like Iran. Lisa Mullins speaks with Iranian cartoonist and editor Nikahang Kowsar of Khodnevis.org about what the best use of the money would be and how both Iranian online activists and Iranian authorities use social media to thwart each other. Download MP3

PBS Tehran Bureau
Nikahang Kowsar on twitter
balatrin.com (Persian)
Videos from Iran on homylafayette.com
Global Political Cartoons on The World

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today that the United States is giving $25 million this year to help dissidents get around internet repression by autocratic regimes. But she said that governments’ misuse of the internet is only a symptom.

Hillary Clinton: Iran isn’t awful because the authorities used Facebook to shadow and capture members of the opposition; Iran is awful because it is a government that routinely violates the rights of its people.’

Mullins: That’s Secretary Clinton earlier today. Thousands turned out in Teheran yesterday to protest their government. Nikahang Kowsar [SP] is an Iranian cartoonist in Washington. He moderates an online news site for Iranians who are in and outside of Iran. He has praise for another State Department initiative: a new twitter feed in Farsi.

Nikahang Kowsar: That possibly wouldn’t help exactly those people on the streets but it’s very encouraging and it shows the online activist inside and outside Iran that somebody is actually caring for what they’re doing. It’s very symbolic. Many people in Iran are connected through Facebook and they would like to actually post news materials, videos and everything that they get on Facebook to share. So there could be a lot of internet sources or internet material that could really help people inside Iran. Like for instance, yesterday I got three videos from one of the demonstrators and posted it possibly just half an hour after he had just shot those videos. By that so many people could see what was happening on the streets of Teheran. But through the website that I was working on it in the States and those people were in Iran. It’s a very weird connection and it’s working actually. But we have to find better ways to empower the people who are under a lot of pressure inside of Iran because of firewalls and also being tracked by the Revolutionary Guards and the administrative intelligence.

Mullins: In terms of the Iranian government itself, does it use social networking tools, Facebook, twitter, to its own end?

Kowsar: We’ve had reports that many members of the Basij or the Voluntary Militia and also the Revolutionary Guards are using fake names and appearing on Facebook, becoming members of different fan pages or becoming friends with activists. They try to actually give false information and even sometimes discourage people from going and acting on the streets or performing what they want to do. Or even they try to crack down smaller networks by entering these…I call them ‘viruses, human viruses’.

Mullins: Did any of that happen yesterday preceding or during the protest yesterday?

Kowsar: I’m not sure about that still but when I was posting a few notes on Facebook I got a few comments from members and they didn’t sound right. I felt that one of those people was trying to say that nothing is happening on the streets and people are just listening to the wrong wave. I just cut the guy off because I was actually witnessing what was happening through reliable sources. So I found out that these guys are really active in trying to discourage people.

Mullins: Can you tell who’s one step ahead? The government or the dissidents, the protesters?

Kowsar: There are times that let’s say the activists are saying, ‘We’re going to have this action next week on that very specific time,’ so then the government would be ahead. But on the other hand, when people are using fake identities, pseudonyms and the government cannot detect who’s who it’s working in a way. There are problems for many activists in Iran and they believe that probably the American government or other governments can help them pass through these firewalls and be protected from these human viruses or these hackers working for the government.

Mullins: Thank you very much. Nikahang Kowsar, an Iranian cartoonist and editor. He moderates the website havaees.org [SP]. We’ll make a link on our website, theworld.org. Thank you very much. By the way we also have a few of your own cartoons up there as well.

Kowsar: Thanks, thanks.

Iran’s failed revolution – one year on

The World — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 20:19:28 +0000

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A year ago Iran was in political upheaval. Now Iranians are wondering what became of the Internet-fueled revolution that brought thousands to the streets of Tehran. Cyrus Farivar has some thoughts from Iranians, both at home and abroad. (flickr image: Hamed Saber)

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: Tomorrow marks one year since the controversial re-election of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. That sent tens of thousands of Iranians out into the streets in what came to be known as the Green Revolution. But it wasn’t really a revolution and it’s still not clear how many Iranians actually supported it. One thing that is clear, one year on, is a sense of how little has changed. Cyrus Farivar reports.

CYRUS FARIVAR: It’s difficult to get a sense of what life is like for ordinary Iranians in Iran today. Most foreign journalists are barred from operating inside the country. And many of those I contacted didn’t want to be interviewed, even anonymously. Still, the BBC did speak by phone to a young man in Tehran. Hamid didn’t give his last name. He says he’s largely given up hope of meaningful change in Iran.

HAMID: There’s no chance. You can’t fight bullets with good intentions and sincere heart. They’d just beat you. But there’s no fighting them, that’s what I think. We lost it. We went to the street, our friends got killed, we got beaten and now we’re back. I think it’s lost.

FARIVAR: Over the past 12 months, many reformist leaders, including a former Vice President, have been arrested and some were even executed. Still, for many Iranians, the political woes are dwarfed by the country’s economic ones. Iran’s official inflation rate was 9.9% last month. Though many observers say it’s likely twice that figure, the government has drastically cut subsidies on gasoline and food, while unemployment continues to rise. One 25-year-old man from the northern Iranian city of Sari says many of his relatives are unemployed. I spoke to him through an interpreter.

INTERPRETER: The rate of unemployment is highest now. And among my relatives there are a lot of contractors and the government should pay them. But the government is facing a deficit and so they can’t pay them what they are owed.

FARIVAR: This man supported Iran’s Green Revolution. And he still has hope that things will change despite the government’s intimidation. Another person who remains optimistic is Mohammed Sadeghi. He’s an Iranian German living in Aachen, Germany. He runs the Facebook page of the former reformist presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi. Sadeghi says you can’t be totally discouraged if you think of the Green Movement not as a political movement, but as a social one.

MOHAMMED SADEGHI: There’s a whole new social identity now, the Green identity, which includes a very broad range of Iranians from all around the world who even might not be politically oriented before.

FARIVAR: Sadeghi describes the Green Movement as part of a larger struggle, going back a century, of how to integrate traditional Islamic values with liberalism, secularism and urbanism. He says that means Ahmadinejad, much less the Islamic Republic, won’t be overturned any time soon. But seeds have been planted across the country.

SADEGHI: The big deal is the social identity which is there and which is going to be further developed and which is going to lead to great changes.

FARIVAR: Still, he concedes those changes could take a long time. Mousavi, via his Facebook page, famously called for his supporters to shout “Allah wa Akbar”, or God is great from their rooftops in the days after the June 12th election. An Iranians in and outside the country have received numerous messages of support through Facebook, FriendFeed and Twitter. But Golnaz Esfandiari points all that online buzz hasn’t translated into any meaningful political change. She is an Iranian born reporters who covers Iran for Radio Free Europe in Prague.

GOLNAZ ESFANDIARI: I think the problem with the Green Movement is, I don’t know what’s the strategy. I don’t see any strategy. Even their goals are not clear. Mousavi said in one of his interviews, maybe two months ago, I don’t know exactly, he said like the goal is to raise the awareness about the Green Movement in the society. But how do they want to do that and what is the strategy for moving forward this goal? I don’t know.

FARIVAR: Indeed, getting the word out may be even harder now that Mousavi and another reformist leader, Mehdi Karroubi, have called off a major protest slated for tomorrow, the anniversary of the election. They said in a statement on Thursday that the protest would be canceled because they couldn’t get government permission. For The World, I’m Cyrus Farivar in Bonn, Germany.

Iran’s underground music scene

The World — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:21:45 +0000

There's a thriving underground music scene in Tehran. A new feature film takes us there. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with the Director of "No One Knows About Persian Cats." A musician from an Iranian rock band also joins in on the conversation. Download MP3

Clinton: Iran is becoming ‘military dictatorship’

The World — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:35:05 +0000

Iran is “becoming a military dictatorship”, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said. She was speaking to students at a Qatar university during a tour of the region. She said Iran’s elite army corps, the Revolutionary Guard, had gained so much power they had effectively supplanted the government. Asked if the US was planning to attack Iran, Clinton said Washington wanted to bring the world community together to agree on sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard. Laura Lynch reports. Download MP3

KATY CLARK: I’m Katy Clark and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston. Iran is veering toward a military dictatorship. That’s the word from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today. Speaking in Qatar, Clinton said Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is increasingly dominating the government in Tehran. She made the comments as she seeks support for tougher sanctions targeting Iran’s nuclear program. The World’s Laura Lynch reports.

LAURA LYNCH: Hillary Clinton’s words were among the strongest she’s used since President Obama offered to engage with Iran.

HILLARY CLINTON: Iranian officials have refused every offer to meet on its nuclear program. So these actions, understandably, have caused us to wonder, what does Iran have to hide?

LYNCH: Clinton’s trip is part of an effort to gather support for tough, new sanctions against Iran and she made her case by warning that the country is becoming a military dictatorship.

HILLARY CLINTON: We are planning to try to bring the world community together in applying pressure to Iran through sanctions adopted by the United Nations that will be particularly aimed at those enterprises controlled by the Revolutionary Guard which we believe is, in effect, supplanting the government of Iran. That is how we see it.

LYNCH: In Tehran the state owned Arabic language TV channel, Al-Alam, which broadcasts to Arab nations, accused Clinton of trying to turn the world against Iran.

INTERPRETER: A coordinated campaign intensifies day by day after every announcement made by Iran on its nuclear, space or defense developments. The U.S. Shuttle diplomacy is aimed at incitement against Tehran.

LYNCH: But for others, Clinton’s assessment wasn’t news at all. Afshin Molavi is an Iranian analyst with the New America Foundation.

AFSHIN MOLAVI: I think what Secretary Clinton was saying was essentially catching up to the reality of Iran. I also think it reflects the frustration that the Obama administration is feeling about Iran because they do feel that they went out on a diplomatic ledge and Iran did not meet them halfway.

LYNCH: Observers say the Revolutionary Guard has been extending its control in Iran for years with the blessing of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khameini. Rasool Nafisi of the Rand Corporation has written a book about the Guard.

RASOOL NAFISI: The process actually started with the revolution because the Revolution Guards are a new phenomenon in Iran combining political and military and security functions together. What happened under Ayatollah Khomeini, the process accelerated to the point that in the 2005 election the takeover of the state was relatively completed.

LYNCH: Nafisi says that means the Guard has former members in the judiciary, the legislature, and of course, at the top of government including President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad. And Afshin Molavi says even though the Ayatollah is the nation’s spiritual and constitutional leader, he’s cultivated close ties to the military.

MOLAVI: In securing his legitimacy he increasingly looks to the barracks rather than the seminary. And over the past 20 years or so he has increasingly allied himself with elements of the Revolutionary Guard and the question becomes, is the tail wagging the dog? They do need each other.

LYNCH: Hillary Clinton said today the United States isn’t seeking to take military action against Iran, but she does want help in hitting the Revolutionary Guard where it hurts. In the past few years the Guard has built up a lucrative and influential business portfolio controlling hundreds of key companies. So it’s no surprise Clinton is urging others on the U.N. Security Council to support additional sanctions targeted at the economic interests controlled by the Guard. For The World, I’m Laura Lynch.

Iran marks 1979 revolution

The World — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:46:01 +0000

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Hundreds of thousands of pro-government Iranians are rallying to mark the 31st anniversary of the nation’s revolution. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used the rally to attack the West, and said Iran had produced its first stock of 20% enriched uranium. The opposition is trying to stage counter-demonstrations, but faces a big security crackdown, and several of its leaders have reportedly been attacked. The anniversary is the most important day in Iran’s political calendar. The government has warned that protesters will be dealt with. The BBC’s Persian TV channel has been covering events in Iran, The World’s Laura Lynch visited the channel.

BBC coverage
BBC Persian
On The World: Arrests in Iran ahead of anniversary

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World. It’s been a day of both celebration and protest in Iran as crowds there mark the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in different ways. Iran’s President took the opportunity to announce that his country has made strides in processing uranium. The White House called that statement more politics than physics. Meanwhile, anti-government protestors took to the streets but it’s hard to get independent information on what’s going on in Iran. The World’s Laura Lynch has been following today’s events from the newsroom of the BBC’s Persian Service in London.

LAURA LYNCH: Trying to tell the story of the day from Iran has been a challenge for the BBC’s Persian Service for months. But editor Sima Alenijad says today has been even more difficult than usual. She suspects the Iranian authorities are jamming communication systems.

SIMA ALENIJAD: Telephone lines are not good. Internet is very slow. We don’t have any reporters and we don’t want to talk to people like journalists who put them in jeopardy because you know so many of them have been jailed in the past days because of today, the anniversary of revolution.

LYNCH: But video, photographs and information are still trickling out and Alenijad is the newsroom’s gate keeper, trying to verify that the material is genuine.

ALENIJAD: I just sent – - , this is the very latest.

LYNCH: So this is posted by somebody inside.

ALENIJAD: YouTube, yes, yes, yes. And it comes both ways. They send it to us and also we find it in YouTube, it goes to YouTube quite quickly.

LYNCH: This video shot on a cell phone shows a man being beaten by the security services. There are reports of clashes including attacks on opposition leaders as they try to draw demonstrators out onto the streets. Away from the violence huge crowds massed in Tehran’s Freedom Square to mark the end of rule under the U.S. backed Shah 31 years ago. President Ahmedinajad stood before them and boasted that Iran is now a nuclear nation. He insisted once again Iran isn’t interested in building a nuclear weapon. But he followed that declaration with defiance and a suggestion that something might change in the future.

INTERPRETER: Our nation is so courageous that if we want to create an atomic bomb we will announce it clearly and we will create it. We are not afraid of you.

LYNCH: Ahmedinajad may not be frightened of foreign leaders, but reports from Iran suggest government security services were anxious to muzzle protestors who gathered to shout death to the dictator. Seyed Mohammed Marandi, the head of North American Studies at Tehran University believes police were justified in cracking down.

SEYED MOHAMMED MARANDI: Well I think if you take into account the fact that there is a huge rally with millions of people on the streets in Tehran taking place. If another group of people want to come and create disturbances within that it could become very dangerous. So I think it was very, I think the police was doing its duty to keep these people from entering the main body of the crowd. Because if people turn against each other, I think that’s a very dangerous thing.

LYNCH: But those who oppose the government say they were trying to get their message across peacefully. Mohammed Reza Heydari used to be the Iranian Consul General in Oslo. He resigned in January over the government’s treatment of opposition protestors, the highest ranking official to publicly quit so far. He says violence won’t put an end to the opposition movement. While they respond to us violently, Heydari says, we defend ourselves. But we avoid violence and tell people not to act violently towards them. We ask everyone to join the people and to not allow the government to do what it wants, so that with these actions we can stop their violence. But with reports of beatings and arrests in cities across the country, there seems little room for compromise in Iran. For The World, I’m Laura Lynch in London.

Iranian lawmakers criticize treatment of opposition

The World — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:48:39 +0000

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A committee of the Iranian parliament has made a rare official criticism of treatment of opposition detainees held in the wake of the disputed election. The report said three detainees died at the notorious Kahrizak detention, and it blamed former Tehran prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi (pictured), who has since been moved to another job, though there is no word if any other action is being taken against him. Matthew Bell reports.

BBC coverage
Iran crisis
Reporter Cyrus Farivar on Internet policing in Iran

JEB SHARP: I’m Jeb Sharp. This is The World. Iran’s top prosecutor today called for strong action against those behind political unrest in the country. That’s a reference to opposition supporters who’ve taken to the streets several times since presidential elections last June. Many opposition members have ended up behind bars since then. There have been reports that those in jail have been beaten and in some cases raped. The government has long denied the charges. But also today, an Iranian parliamentary committee acknowledged some of that harsh treatment. Although the committee did not mention the alleged rapes, it said a former prosecutor was responsible for the deaths of three prisoners. The World’s Matthew Bell has the details.

MATTHEW BELL: The Iranian Parliamentary investigation singles out a notorious hardliner and former prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi. The report says Mortazavi knew that opposition protesters were being detained in harsh conditions, and that he was ultimately responsible for the deaths of three prisoners, including the son of a senior member of the Revolutionary Guards. Mortazavi had said that the prisoners died in custody because they had meningitis. But the head of the investigation, speaking in the Iranian Parliament today, said that’s not true.

KAZEM JALALI: [Speaking foreign language]

BELL: Kazem Jalali said the prisoners died for various reasons. They include overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions and lack of ventilation. But Jalali went on to say that prisoners were beaten and then ignored by guards. This public criticism represents a rare acknowledgement of wrongdoing from the Iranian government. By naming the former Tehran prosecutor, Mortazavi, the government also singled out a political ally of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. In that sense, it suggests the government is aware of public pressure from Iranians who are deeply troubled by the violent crackdown on opposition supporters.

MEHRDAD KHONSARI: There’s no escaping from it.

BELL: Mehrdad Khonsari is with the Center for Arab and Iranian Studies in London.

KHONSARI: The regime is forced to try to portray itself as being even-handed and concerned about public protests regarding wrongdoings.

BELL: But Khonsari says he doubts this signals anything like a change of heart among Iran’s hardline leaders. He points out that Mortazavi has not been charged with a crime, and that the former prosecutor is someone who’s made a name for himself as a radical rising star within the Islamic judicial system. Khonsari says it’s unlikely Mortazavi will end up getting more than a slap on the wrist.

KHONSARI: It is not in the mold of the regime to take backward steps of this nature because they’re afraid that if they drop their aggressiveness in one area, that that would lead to a domino that would force them to make concessions in other areas. And once that process begins, then they will lose everything.

BELL: Experts say the Islamic Republic of Iran is facing the most serious challenge since its creation in 1979. But Suzanne Maloney at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington says it’s very difficult to predict how that challenge is going to play out. And that, she says, makes things even more difficult for the Obama Administration as it confronts Iran over its nuclear program.

SUZANNE MALONEY: The difficulty is simply that there is a process of change underway in Iran and no one knows where it’s going to end and how. And so the regime that we have to deal with today, and I agree with many who say that we have to engage simply because this is such an urgent threat. That regime may not be in power in 18 months. I don’t think that’s a likelihood, but I think it’s a significant possibility.

BELL: Maloney says President Obama clearly wants to avoid misreading the situation in Iran as Jimmy Carter was guilty of in the late 1970s. Carter described Iran’s government as an island of stability. Eighteen months later, came the anti-American Islamic Revolution. For The World, I’m Matthew Bell.

Iranian odyssey

The World — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:47:31 +0000

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Maziar Bahari has felt the wrath of the Iranian security services. The journalist and filmmaker was detained in Iran last year while he was covering the post election demonstrations. He was held in Evin Prison for four months before being released. Bahari was in Boston over the weekend and anchor Jeb Sharp had a chance to talk with him.

JEB SHARP: Maziar Bahari has felt the wrath of the Iranian security services. The London-based journalist and filmmaker was arrested while covering the post-election demonstrations in Iran last year. He was held for four months in the notorious Evin prison. While there, he says he was interrogated, beaten and accused of being a spy. He was finally released in October. Maziar Bahari was here in Boston over the weekend. I caught up with him at his hotel. I asked him how the ordeal had affected him.

MAZIAR BAHARI: The reason for my arrest was to break me and to change me as a person, and as a journalist and a filmmaker. And I think the best way for me to defy what my captors wanted to achieve is to carry on doing the same thing as I did before my arrest. So I will continue to be an objective observe of Iranian politics and Iranian history.

SHARP: And that’s just what Bahari has been doing. He was in town for the premier of his new documentary at the Boston Festival of Films from Iran at the Museum of Fine Arts. The film is called, “An Iranian Odyssey: Mossadegh, Oil and the 1953 CIA Coup.” Bahari says Americans should understand the story of how the United States and Britain backed a coup that toppled a popular Iranian Prime Minister back in 1953.

BAHARI: Many Americans when they see the irrational behavior of Ahmadinejad, and his laundry list of grievances against the United States and the rest of the world, they ask themselves why. Why is he so angry? Of course, Ahmadinejad is abusing those historical grievances to his own advantage, and to take advantage of the Iranian government. But there is some truth in that laundry list of grievances.

SHARP: Bahari says his film is not a comprehensive treatment of the Mossadegh story. It’s just his attempt to understand what happened. He says the basic outlines of the way Iranians perceive the story are right, that Mossadegh was a popular leader who nationalized Iran’s oil industry wresting it back from the British. And that the British and the Americans conspired to topple Mossadegh when they feared he would let Iran fall to the Soviets during the Cold War. But Bahari also punctures the notion of Mossadegh as some sort of perfect leader. He argues that Mossadegh’s popularity depended a great deal on the support of a powerful religious leader called Ayatollah Kashani who was also instrumental in the nationalization of Iran’s oil. And Bahari describes Mossadegh as naïve about Cold War politics and a populist rather than a man of pure principle.

BAHARI: Mossadegh was a great man. I mean, he was maybe as close as any Iranian politician had ever gotten to greatness. But at the same time, he was very populace. He basically gauged the public mode, and he adapted to that. And sometimes that meant that he was dishonest. The fact that, you know, he was in bed all the time. He pretended to be ill. He was resorting to histrionics in order to gain the support of people.

SHARP: The film is striking for the photographs and footage Bahari has tracked down. There are countless photographs of Mossadegh greeting dignitaries from his bed clad in pajamas. There are dramatic street scenes from the days of the coup, some provided by the daughter of an anonymous CIA officer. Bahari also makes effective use of old British cartoons that vilify and ridicule Mossadegh for nationalizing the oil industry. And there’s some classic American news reel.

NEWS REEL: Former Premier Mossadegh’s ruined house is a mute testimony to three days of blood rioting culminating in a military coup from which the one-time dictator of Iran fled for his life. The Shah who had fled to Rome comes home. Backed by General Zahedi, military strong man, who engineered his return to power. Iranian oil may again flow westward.

SHARP: Bahari tracks down a range of elderly players from the old days with fierce attachments to different versions of the story of the 1953 coup. His interviews with them formed the backbone of the film.

BAHARI: It was very difficult to find the people, but I found some really, really amazing people in the film, and everyone was convinced that they knew the truth and what they believed in was the right thing to do. And I thought that the best way to create the film was to juxtapose all these different realities next to each other, and allow the audiences to just come to the conclusion who is right.

SHARP: So in the film you hear from an Iranian Nationalist, former Communist, an aging hoodlum, former Mossadegh bodyguards and aides, and also an aging British diplomat called Sam Falle, who played a key role working with Iranian agents of the British to orchestrate Mossadegh’s ouster.

BAHARI: How would you describe someone who advocates British policies and receives money from the British Embassy for advocating those policies.

SAM FALL: Well, I’ve heard the Iranians would call them British stooge.

BAHARI: What do you call them?

FALL: I would call them sons who won’t cooperate.

BAHARI: Sam Falle is an amazing character. He was so honest and his honesty was so brutal that made him really into a fascinating character. And he put Mozidek and all those events in the context of Cold War, and the fact that the nationalization of oil happened six years after the end of the Second World War. The Soviet Union was expanding. Stalin and his successor Malenkov they had ambitions to take over as many countries as possible. Iran had a weak government, had a very strong Communist Party. So he thinks that overthrow of Mossadegh was the right thing to do. As an Iranian, as a patriotic Iranian, I don’t know. I think the manner in which the coup happened, the manner in which the American government interfered in Iranian internal affairs, that was not right. But whether the condemnation of Mozidek or whatever has also been a greater tragedy or not, that’s something that he should think about. I don’t think he should have a very simplistic view and just dismiss what Sam Falle says. I think it gives you food for thought.

SHARP: And the premise of the film is that unless you understand or begin to understand or at least acknowledge the layers of the Mossadegh story, the oil story and the coup story, you really can’t understand Iran and Iranian attitudes and world views. And in that sense, what is the message to people who don’t know this story?

BAHARI: I think there are two things that people have to understand by watching the film. First of all is that Iranians they have historical grievances against foreign integration in their country. And the other thing to understand is that Iranians are very religious, and religion has always played a very important role in the country. Interference of religion in Iranian politics did not start with Kohmeni, and it’s not going to finish with Kohmeni. It started even before Arabs invaded Iran and Islam was introduced to Iran. Even in the pre-Islamic period of Iranian history the religious men, they were always very powerful in the court of the ancient Persian kings. And I think religion will be very important even when the Islamic Republic will be changed or reformed or replaced by another government.

SHARP: Maziar Bahari, thank you very much.

BAHARI: Very nice to be here.

SHARP: Maziar Bahari’s latest documentary is “An Iranian Odyssey: Mossadegh, Oil and the 1953 CIA Coup.” And we should say that the film was financed by our broadcast partner the BBC. Bahari spent four months in an Iranian prison last year. You can read his account of that ordeal at The World dot org.

Clashes at funeral of Iranian dissident cleric

The World — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:05:44 +0000

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Iranian reformists have clashed with police after the funeral of a dissident cleric, opposition websites say. Earlier, tens of thousands took part in a procession for Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri in the holy city of Qom. Clashes reportedly broke out, but the scale of the confrontation is not clear, the BBC reports. Montazeri, who died aged 87 of natural causes in Qom on Saturday night, had decried President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election in June as a fraud. Marco Werman talks with correspondent Borzou Daragahi, who is just back from a visit to Iran.

BBC coverage
BBC obituary: Ayatollah Montazeri

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman, this is The World. The funeral of one of Iran’s most influential dissident figures seems to have put new life into opposition protests in the country. Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri died on Saturday, and tens of thousands of people attended his funeral today in the Holy City of Qom. Reports from Iran say the security forces clashed with opposition supporters there. Los Angeles Times reporter Borzou Daraghai is back in Beirut just back from Teheran. Borzou, what happened in Qom?

BORZOU DARAGHAI: Well today there was a huge number of people according to witnesses and videotape posted through the Internet. Huge number of people, supporters of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri who descended upon the shrine city from all over the country, many of them his supporters from his home town of Najafabad where you had very rowdy demonstrations yesterday and immediately they took to the streets as the funeral procession began and they chanted very charged political slogans, and they turned this funeral ceremony as they took his black draped body from his humble home they turned it into a loud, boisterous opposition demonstration. Apparently afterward there was some minor clashes between supporters of the supreme leader, hard right-wing loyalists to the Islamic Republic’s ruling establishment, and supporters of Montazeri. But according to our understanding these were not the dominant motifs of the day.

MARCO: I mean it’s kind of hard to tweeze apart from here just what kind of a blow this is to the opposition to have the Grand Ayatollah Montazeri die. I mean, how big a spiritual figure was he for the opposition?

BORZOU: He was a very important figure. He was considered by many to be the most learned, the most senior cleric in the Iranian Shiite clerical establishment. And his passing, it delivers a blow. It takes away some of their clerical legitimacy. On the other hand, he had said his most radical statements about the Islamic Republic and about the Supreme Leader in recent weeks. Some people put it, I mean the guy was 87. He had already made this amazing transformation from one of the architects of the Islamic Republic to one of it’s most strident critics, questioning even the legitimacy of the revolution and in some cases in recent years even basically saying that if he could do it again he wouldn’t have supported this revolution. And so he has made that transformation, eerily, uncannily, there could have not been a more galvanizing point for him to die. The religiously significant seventh day after his death will fall on the peak of the Moharam ceremonies in Iran, the Ashora where men pour into the streets and lament the seventh century martyrdom of the Imam Hussein and this has already been planned as an opposition protest and so this must just make the authorities in the Islamic Republic just shiver with fear.

MARCO: I mean you just left Teheran today Borzou, what is the mood right now?

BORZOU: Well among the opposition it’s surprisingly optimistic. There’s a certain maturity. People are going about their daily lives during the normal course of their days. They’re going to work, they’re pursuing their studies. I talked to many people who were saying that they don’t want to get arrested, they don’t want to get in big trouble because they see this as a potentially years long battle that they’re hunkering down for.

MARCO: Los Angeles Times reporter Borzou Daraghai, thanks very much for your time.

BORZOU: It’s been a pleasure.

More protests in Iran

The World — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:57:58 +0000

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Iranian security forces have clashed violently with opposition supporters in central Tehran, witnesses say. Police used batons and tear gas, according to the witnesses. There were also unconfirmed reports of security forces using live rounds. State media confirmed there had been clashes, though a foreign media ban means details cannot be verified. The violence came on the day that Iran holds an annual commemoration for the killing of three students in 1953. Borzou Daragahi of the Los Angeles Times is monitoring events from Beirut, Lebanon.

BBC coverage
More info on the Iran crisis

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World.

[PROTESTORS SHOUTING]

This is one of the protests Iranians staged today against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his disputed reelection in June. Dozens of people were arrested in Tehran and security forces reportedly fired live ammunition in the vicinity of the demonstrators there. Iranian authorities restricted internet access and they closed down mobile phone networks in Tehran. But one activist there still managed to send footage to the BBC.

[PROTESTORS CHANTING/WHISTLING]

Borzou Daragahi of the Los Angeles Times is monitoring events from Beirut. Borzou what is the latest you’ve heard on the protests?

BORZOU DARAGAHI: Well the students that protested today, they took part in protests all over the country, many cities that we could get confirmed via videotape. The protests began early in the morning with these sort of grudge matches between the security forces, some of them camped out on the university campuses and the students who were determined to stage rallies. The response by the security forces was harsh and brutal but definitely not deadly. There was obviously an attempt to use non-lethal force to suppress these demonstrations. There was a lot of stuff happening on the campuses. Less on the streets. But then again this was National Student’s Day, a day when traditionally students make their presence felt in Iran’s political scene.

WERMAN: Right and apparently the day began [INDISCERNIBLE] that way as annual student day but then got co-opted by the students. Why are they so angry? What do they think they can change at this point?

DARAGAHI: Well I think the reasons for their anger are pretty clear. They feel that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not the president of Iran, that his election was rigged, and that they tried to use the levers of the Islamic Republic to make appeasable change and they were thwarted and so now they are upping their demands and in some cases, and this is one of the kind of interesting developments that we’re seeing, their slogans are becoming more radical and perhaps in the future their techniques will become more radical as well.

WERMAN: Today’s demonstrations and the interaction with the authorities does seem to mark another peak in the repression there. Where does the government go next? I mean it does seem like they’re playing wackamo with demonstrations, breaking things up as they happen, arresting protestors. Is there any sign of dialogue?

DARAGAHI: Well I think there are calls from within the ranks of conservatives for dialogue between the two camps, between the opposition and the government camps. But some people in the opposition see these calls as a method of dividing and conquering the opposition to try to marginalize some in the opposition by proposing a deal to those more moderate elements in the opposition in order to more easily weaken it. I’m not sure if it’s going to work. There’s very little room for dialogue in this game. You’ve got a government that has basically said that the opposition is a dupe of foreign powers and you have an opposition that says that the government is an illegitimate coup d’etat government that needs to be replaced.

WERMAN: Borzou is anybody in Iran talking about the viability of the Ahmadinejad regime?

DARAGAHI: You know there doesn’t seem to be on the horizon any big, huge governmental change possible like in the immediate future. You know the Ahmadinejad government, the system of government in Iran, the Islamic Republic, does not appear to be in any immediate peril. But there is something that should be worrying to the elites of the Islamic Republic is that no matter what they try, no matter what threats they issue, no matter what dire consequences they try to inflict on those who go out in the streets, the continue to protest, they continue to organize. You know today was rather remarkable you know despite weeks of warnings and a huge presence of security forces the protest movement managed to stage coordinated demonstrations on numerous campuses across the country in many corners of the country from the East to the West, from the North to the South, from the big cities to the little cities. And we don’t even know what is going on in those smaller cities and towns each of which have a university. This was a show of strength on the part of the demonstrators on the protest movement despite the heavy measures that were taken by the security forces. So there’s no question about the viability of the Islamic Republic. It doesn’t seem to be in immediate peril. But there also seems to be no question about the viability of this particular protest movement. It also does not seem to be in peril.

WERMAN: Borzou Daragahi of the Los Angeles Times in Beirut. We appreciate it Borzou. Thank you.

DARAGAHI: It’s been a pleasure.

Women’s rights in Iran

The World — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 20:40:04 +0000

Iran’s authorities recently confiscated Shirin Ebadi’s Nobel Peace prize medal. Activists say the move against the Iranian human rights lawyer exemplifies Tehran’s hostility toward women. Mahnaz Afkhami was the Minister for Women’s Affairs in Iran before the 1979 revolution. She now lives in Bethesda, Maryland. Afkhami wrote the foreword to a new book called Iranian Women’s One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality. Anchor Marco Werman talks with Afkhami about the women’s movement in Iran and the ‘One Million Signatures’ campaign. Download MP3

MARCO WERMAN: Iran has been acting provocatively in other ways. Authorities this month confiscated Shirin Ebadi’s Nobel Peace prize medal. Activists say the move against the Iranian human rights lawyer exemplifies Teheran’s hostility toward women. Mahnaz Afkhami was the Minister for Women’s Affairs in Iran before the 1979 Revolution. She now lives in Bethesda, Maryland. Afhkahmi wrote the forward to a new book called “Iranian Women’s One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality.” The book describes a drive to overturn Iran’s so-called family laws.

MAHNAZ AFKHAMI: Mainly the rights of women within the family from the right of a woman to marry without anyone’s permission, the right to divorce, the right to guardianship of children, the right to travel freely, the right to hold a job without her husband’s permission, a whole range of law. Actually, you know, it’s called family laws, but in effect this set of legislation controls all aspects of a woman’s life, woman’s worth as a citizen.

WERMAN: So to get a lot of signatures on a petition, you have to convince people that what you’re doing is right, and obviously this movement inside Iran has had to be very innovative. One thing that really caught my eye, and is innovative is this guerilla theater that the campaign has been conducting. Tell us about that.

AFKHAMI: Yes, actually what they want is not just one million names under a petition, but what they want is really to recruit one million activists. So this involves really convincing people, getting them mobilized. And so since they’re not allowed to gather in large numbers or hold workshops freely and that type of thing, so what they do is improvise. They have street theater for instance. At bus stops they begin a conversation between two of the campaign activists taking the two sides of an argument, and people gather around them and begin to participate in the argument. And then, before long the major issues of the legislation come under discussion by people who don’t even know they’re being part of the street theater. And it’s been said that in previous times police have come to stop what they consider an argument, and sometimes they have joined in the discussion and then the two people who started it get on the bus and leave. They do it in different places. You know, they do it in taxi cabs, beauty shops, in schools, wherever women gather.

WERMAN: So Ms. Afkhami, I mean, it’s a pretty radical program you’ve got going. We’re talking not just a simple petition here. Is that an especially toxic form of activism in Iran, and how have the authorities of the Islamic Revolution reacted to this?

AFKHAMI: Well, they haven’t liked it one bit actually, and what they haven’t liked also is the fact that the movement has grown to include other social justice movements. And this is something that very important. At least 30% of signatures on the campaign are from men and men are really very active in the campaign, and they take it on as their own aspiration and not just something that they’re supporting the women for. And that worries the authorities a great deal and, of course, you know, almost everyone who was one of the founders or leaders of the movement has been harassed, has been imprisoned, is in prison or has some kind of suspended sentence hanging over their heads.

WERMAN: You live here in the United States but the author of the book, “Campaign for Equality” Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani lives in Iran. Has she been able to be public about this book and this petition drive?

AFKHAMI: Yes, she has, as others do, a number of websites in constant interaction both in Iran and with the outside world, and she has that website. She has published the book in Persian, although surreptitiously without permission. And she asked to have the book publicized in the United States, and although we were all rather concerned about the backlash, they are very courageous women. They really know what dangers they face and, of course, that’s part of also being very young, and most of them are. Most of them are under the age of 30.

WERMAN: We should add that you’re in the United States because after the 1979 Revolution the Ayatollahs put you on their death list, and charged you with corruption on earth and warring with God. I supposed you’ve had quite a few years to think about what that actually means. What does warring with God mean?

AFKHAMI: Well, at first it was very frightening because at the beginning of the Revolution there was a lot of also state executions being conducted outside. The only other woman who was a minister was actually executed on these charges in Iran. At first, it was very frightening, but actually as time goes by I feel in such august company. All of my wonderful colleagues, democrats, freedom fighters, strugglers for human rights, all of them have something of that sort of a label attached to them. So I feel very proud to be in that company.

WERMAN: Mahnaz Afkhami was in charge of Women’s Affairs for the Iranian government before the Revolution. She’s now a proponent of women’s rights in the Islamic world. She spoke with us from the BBC studios in Washington.

Ayatollah vs. Ahmadinejad

Matthew Exell — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:20:11 +0000

President Ahmadinejad may have clung onto power after last summer’s elections, but opposition to his government continues. That opposition is receiving support from an unlikely quarter – Iran’s conservative clergy.

This week’s edition of BBC Radio Four’s ‘Analysis’, produced for the domestic UK audience, investigates this phenomenon. The program contains an e-mail interview with Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri (pictured) – one of the Shi’ite world’s most senior and respected clerics and one of Iran’s most outspoken critics of President Ahmadinejad’s government.

In this interview, he calls on Iran’s clergy to work with political activists to bring about reform, urging them to be “in step with the people”. Grand Ayatollah Montazeri is at the forefront of a surprising alliance that is emerging in Iran – between hard-line secularists and orthodox Muslim clerics.

The BBC’s Edward Stourton asks whether this alliance could cause the collapse of the Islamic Republic as we know it and lead to a greater separation of Islam and the Iranian state.

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Iran’s elite troops

The World — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:55:03 +0000

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Earlier this week, Iran disclosed that it was building a second uranium enrichment plant, despite UN demands it cease its enrichment activities. The site is believed to be near the city of Qom, guarded by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards. The World’s Laura Lynch looks at the apparently growing role of the Revolutionary Guards in the Islamic Republic.(Photo: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)

JEB SHARP: I’m Jeb Sharp and this is The World. Iran says it views tomorrow’s talks in Geneva as an opportunity and a test. Tehran’s chief nuclear negotiator is slated to meet with officials from the US and five other nations. US officials are calling for Iran to come clean on its nuclear program or face tougher sanctions. The pressure on Iran is building after last week’s revelations that Tehran has secretly been building a second uranium enrichment plant. It’s next to a military compound run by the country’s revolutionary guard. As The World’s Laura Lynch reports, that’s just another indication of the guard’s growing influence inside Iran.

LAURA LYNCH: A missile roared high above the skies of Iran last weekend, a show of military might and defiance. After all, the successful test of the country’s long range missiles came right after Iran was chastised fro hiding a second nuclear fuel plant. The test came courtesy of the revolutionary guard’s air force, headed by a very proud general, Hussein Salemi.

HUSSEIN SALEMI: The missiles that were launched today were advanced long range missiles that belonged to us and have been manufactured by the missile command of the Iran’s revolutionary guard air force.

LYNCH: No surprise that the guard’s core, numbering more than one hundred and twenty five thousand, is involved in matters military. But Mosenz Sazagara says it’s become so much more than a fighting force.

MOSENZ SAZAGARA: Revolution we got is now a government inside the government of Iran. A regime inside the regime of Iran.

LYNCH: He says Sazagara was a founding member of the revolutionary guard. He researched other countries’ military make-up, including America’s, on his way to building the military and intelligence force, that’s charged with protecting the ideals of the Islamic revolution.

SAZAGARA: You know the evolution we got that we establish at the first days of, which revolution was not [INDISCERNIBLE] at least were revolutionary guards. In those days we thought that we were going to create a peaceful army and organization to mobilize people to descend the concrete. That’s was the main idea.

LYNCH: Alongside the military though, the guard created a voluntary force, the Bezique militia, well known as the shocks troops who battled protestors on the streets this summer. But Sazagara, now a dissident living in the US, says over the years the guard has creeped into almost all corners of Iran’s society and economy.

SAZAGARA: They are everywhere and not only in military but they are involved in security, economy, propaganda. They are involved in TV, radio and everywhere.

LYNCH: In the last few days, a firm tied to the guard has taken a controlling interest in a telecommunications company that controls the infrastructure of landlines, cell phone networks and data storage and exchange in Iran. And that’s just the latest in a string of enterprises under its control from dentistry to engineering to charities. It’s also developed political clout. A string of former guard members are in top positions. T hey include the president, Mahud Abdinijad. But Iranian academic, Rasul Nafisi, says even with all that power, the military men miscalculated earlier this year when the elections descended into protests. Nafisi says they let it happen in an effort to downplay their growing influence.

RASUL NAFISI: They are interested in elections for two reasons. Number one, to look legitimate in the eyes of the nation. Number two, to look legitimate in the eyes of the world.

LYNCH: The old struggle for military superiority has evolved into a battle for control over Iran’s economy and the wealth it brings. Mosenz Sazagara hears from some of his old comrades who are unhappy about the way the guard has changed. But Rasul Nafisi says those men have lost influence.

NAFISI: I believe that as we go forward, we will have more and more of a uniform ideological group with tremendous interest in the economy.

LYNCH: They may still put on a good show, displaying the latest military hardware for all the world to see, but it’s the guard’s ever growing economic power, ties to perhaps as many as a hundred companies with revenues of billions of dollars that may well make it the most powerful force in Iran. For The World, I’m Laura Lynch.