Originally published in Enduring America and The Huffington Post | February 22, 2010
Every so often, I read the news about Iran and it reminds me of growing up as a refugee in Pakistan.
The latest reminder came on 11 February, my birthday, which happened to be the Islamic Revolution’s birthday as well. The occasion brought [...]

(Pedestrian) | February 20, 2010

One of the most popular TV shows on IRIB after the revolution, was the Secret Army [1977], a join BBC/BRT [Belgian National Broadcasting] project about a Belgian/French resistance movement during the Second World War. The show originally aired in Iran in 1990.
The reruns aired on IRIB for years, but somehow, I [...]

(CNN) | February 20, 2010
Yusuf Bassil
Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) — A key Sunni Arab party is boycotting Iraq’s March 7 elections because of what it says was Iranian influence that led to the banning of participants in the upcoming race, including the bloc’s leader.
The Iraqi Front for National Dialogue, headed by Saleh al-Mutlaq, said the move [...]

A beautiful song for the people of Iran.

(Washington Post) | February 19, 2010
Canada retained its top position as the country viewed most favorably by Americans, while Iran again ranked last in Gallup’s annual World Affairs survey according to results released Friday.
Ninety percent of Americans viewed their northern neighbor favorably in Gallup’s survey of 20 nations that figure prominently in the news or [...]

Time | February 4, 2010
Shervin Malekzadeh
Back before protests erupted last June, if you were to see a crowd gathered on the streets in Tehran, odds were that people were buying up the latest U.S. hit movie or television show from a black-market vendor. Customers flip through piles of plastic sleeves, looking for an unseen classic [...]

Waking up every day and being a journalist is a very conflicting job. Sometimes, you read the work of other journalists who’ve written responsibly and with full knowledge of the subject matter and you feel proud of who you are. Other times, people write things that make you want to just sit there and mourn [...]

پیغام رئس جمهور امریکا به مردم ایران ِ28/12/2009
امریکا به همراه جامعه بین المللی شدیداسرکوب غیر عادلانه و وحشیانه مردم بی گناه ایران را محکوم میکند. این سرکوب ها باعث زندانی و مجروح شدن و حتی کشتن مردم شده است. در ماهای اخیر مردم ایران فقط در جستجوی حقوق انسانی خود بوده اند و هر بار [...]

The Iranian government has arrested Shirin Ebadi’s sister, Noushin Ebadi, in Iran in an attempt to intimidate the Nobel Prize winner.
Shirin Ebadi is currently not inside Iran. She spoke today with Reza Sayah from CNN.
Click here to read the full story on CNN.

(Globe and Mail)
Doug Saunders
It’s always been a dangerous fallacy to believe that the main boosters of Islamic fundamentalism are the Muslim poor. Now, movements in impoverished parts of Cairo, Tehran and elsewhere are demanding more from their rulers than pious rhetoric
If you take an evening stroll around the southern fringes of Tehran, where the mountains [...]