Iran Video Feature: 50 Iranians Answer, "What's Your Wish?" (Molavi)

Hat tip to Golnaz Esfandiari....

Ali Molavi asks 50 people in Tehran, "What's your wish for today?"

Click on "Turn on English" for captions:

Iran Snapshot: "Bad Hijab" Woman Beats Up Cleric (Esfandiari)

Female "Morality Police" Enforcing "Good Hijab""I politely [told] her to cover herself up," said Hojatoleslam Ali Beheshti, an Iranian cleric in the city of Shamirzad in Semnan Province, describing a recent encounter with a woman he believed was improperly veiled.

"She responded to me by saying: 'You [should] close your eyes.'"

Beheshti said he repeated his warning to the “bad hijab” woman, which is a way of describing women who do not fully observe the Islamic dress code that became compulsory following the 1979 revolution.

"Not only didn’t she cover herself up, but she also insulted me. I asked her not to insult me anymore, but she started shouting and threatening me," Beheshti said. "She pushed me and I fell to the ground on my back. From that point on, I don’t know what happened. I was just feeling the kicks of the woman who was beating me up and insulting me."

Click to read more ...

Iran Feature: The "No to Hijab" Campaign on Facebook (Esfandiari)

Dozens of Iranian women, and some men, living both inside and outside the country, have posted their pictures on the Facebook page of a newly launched campaign called, “No to Mandatory Hijab” that declares that women should have the right to choose whether or not to wear the Muslim headscarf.

Among the posters, according to the campaign’s organizers, are women living inside the country who voluntarily wear the chador -- the long cloak with a head scarf -- but believe that the hijab shouldn’t be compulsory.

Click to read more ...

Iran Feature: Maya Neyestani --- Challenging Repression Through The Cartoon (Esfandiari)

Neyestani's cartoons pulse with feelings of hope, lack of freedom, and frustration with the absurd social and political rules that Iranians face in their day-to-day lives. His drawings depict Iranian leaders as obsessed with nuclear power, show how sanctions hurt ordinary people, evoke the specter of war with Israel, highlight the plight of political prisoners, and, in general, draw attention to vexing issues on the minds of many Iranians.

Click to read more ...

Iran Feature: The Disappearing Interview with a US Official (Esfandiari)

The Controversial Alef ArticleSince Tuesday, we have paid close attention to the curious episode of a conservative Iranian newspaper/website, linked to leading MP Ahmad Tavakoli, announcing and then withdrawing the announcement of an interview with the State Department's Persian-language spokesperson Alan Eyre.

Golnaz Esfandiari, writing for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, summarises the developments, which came amidst confusion over Iran's forthcoming nuclear talks with the US and other powers....

Click to read more ...

Iran Music Special: The Basij Militia Rap for Occupy Wall Street

We have repeatedly noted the Iranian regime's love of protest --- well, protest that is 1) in America or 2) by Basij militia "students", say, in front of a foreign embassy.

But what if the two could be combined? And what if it could be done through music? Not just music, but hard-core urban rap music?

Basij member Hashem Bafghi has made that protest dream come true. A snippet of the English lyrics:

Occupy Wall Street is a real war street
What Happened to the American Dream?
Don’t watch and have ice cream
Capitalism failed everyone
Killed the people one by one

Unfortunately, we cannot embed this iconic track, but you can have a listen and rap along here (hat tip to Golnaz Esfandiari of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty).

And, for a reminder that criticism of Wall Street is not just a 21st-century thing, you can enjoy a less aggressive foreign intervention through music:

The Latest from Iran (6 January): Spying Fantasy, Death Sentence Reality

2100 GMT: Sanctions Watch. The Financial Times reviews the Washington-led effort to shut down the operations of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, "US Takes Aim at Iranian Shipping".

2055 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Two activists from the Tehran Bus Workers Union in Iran, Morteza Komsari and Aliakbar Nazariis, have been released in prison. Four others --- Gholamreza Gholamhosseini, Ebrahim Madadi, Mansour Osanloo, and Reza Shahabi --- remain in detention.

1720 GMT: Striking at the Lies. Alireza Beheshti, Chief of Staff to Mir Hossein Mousavi during the 2009 campaign, has written an open letter challenging the regime's line of "sedition" around the Presidential election as a "flood of slander and insult".

Click to read more ...

Iran Witness: Journalist Jalali Farahani "We Knew That Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Was Not Re-Elected"

On the night of the election at the Mehr news agency, we knew that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was not reelected because Mehr had reporters in cities across Iran and we were receiving reports every minute about the results in different cities, we knew about the votes Ahmadinejad had received and the votes that went to Mir Hossein Musavi. We even had figures about the ballot boxes from outside the country. 

Around 7 p.m. when we did an approximate count of the vote, we came to the conclusion that Mir Hossein Musavi was the new president. Around 4 p.m. our reporter reported that armed Revolutionary Guards had attacked the central election office of Musavi. 

Imagine, we're there covering the news and we're receiving all these reports, around 6 p.m. a friend of mine who worked at the "Iran" daily called me and said that the manager of the paper had told all the staff to come to work to prepare a special issue for the victory of Ahmadinejad -- the election process had not ended at this point. 

That night was the worst night of my career, not only me but for all my colleagues -- even those who supported Ahmadinejad who were only a few at the Mehr news agency -- they could see that there was fraud.

Click to read more ...

Iran Witness: On the State of the Economy and Standing in Line (Tohidlou)

[Officials] don't like to speak about the rise of prices. The [lack of transparency] is the factor that is leading people to try hoarding what they can. And this is how the lines for gasoline get longer and longer.

All the news is about rising prices. For example, the 30 percent rise in the price of plane tickets, which means a rise in the price of other things and also a rise in the price of rice and oil, which has led many to go to shops to buy rice and oil at the old price.

There is worry these days over an uncertain future. A future that will bring a shock to the economy and to people's lives like the 10 percent increase in the dollar rate did. These days in different lines that are spreading, you can hear the concern of the people about their way of life now and in the future.

Click to read more ...

The View from Iran: Ahmadinejad's Propaganda, Stoning, and the Green Movement (Gallo)

A reformist leader in Iran who wishes to remain anonymous summarises, "The society lives in fear, but under the ashes the fire of opposition hasn’t been extinguished. There is now a big gap between a large part of the Iranian people and its government."

The immediate enemy of the Government is the economic crisis. A well-placed journalist notes, "When you speak to Iranians the first thing on their mind is the terrible state of the economy, the inflation and unemployment. Young people are desperate, they see a grim future and many want to leave the country.”  

With the imminent introduction of reductions in the $100 billion-per-year Government subsidies, money will be missing in the pockets of the people. That is now the hottest challenge for the regime, but its effects could reignite the fire under the ashes, reuniting dissatisfied segments of society as resurrecting publicly the opposition of the Green Movement.

Click to read more ...