Author: Siyavash Shahabi
-
Iranian Cinema in a Shapeless Moment: Dissecting Survival, Agency, and Paradox in a Transitional Era
One of the latest conversations in cinema and art, hosted by an Iranian YouTube channel, brought together two of today’s most prominent Iranian film directors. Their discussion about censorship and cultural authoritarianism was gripping. But one point in their remarks clearly showed how different Iranian society is from three years ago. The key analysis in…
-
Children in the Firing Line: Why We Should Call it a Genocide
Gaza is breathing under a planned machinery of destruction: continuous bombing of residential areas, a total blockade, imposed famine, the dismantling of health care and water services, and organized obstruction of life-saving aid. These are not scattered wartime errors; they are a chain of decisions and directives targeting the Palestinian population, especially children. This article…
-
Fifteen Days in the Life of Workers in Iran
Over the last fifteen days, reports from different towns and industries in Iran painted a consistent picture: people who work—factory hands, municipal crews, oil and gas employees, platform drivers, miners, and border laborers—are carrying the country’s crises on their backs. The same problems return again and again: unpaid wages, unstable contracts, sudden layoffs, dangerous worksites,…
-
Iran’s Reform Front Statement: Insiders Expose a System in Crisis
Less than two months after the “ceasefire” between Iran and Israel, on August 17 Iran’s Reform Front (including more than 30 political party and groups) released a statement titled “National Reconciliation: A Golden Opportunity for Change and a Return to the People,” offering immediate and practical steps for structural reforms in both domestic and foreign…
-
Environmental Activism and Resistance in Kurdistan
In early August 2025, four environmental activists lost their lives while trying to control a wildfire in the Abidar mountains near Sanandaj, in Iran’s Kurdistan province. They were not the first to die this way. In recent years, at least 20 Kurdish environmental defenders have been killed in similar circumstances across the Zagros forests. These…
-
Authoritarianism in Exile: the Future Iran Doesn’t Need
In late July, a political gathering took place in Munich that brought together a wide range of Iranian right-wing opposition figures in exile under title of “National Cooperation to Save Iran.” On the surface, it looked like another conference of activists and politicians trying to present themselves as an alternative to the Islamic Republic. Yet,…
-
Kurdistan in Iran’s Crisis: Shared Struggles, Distinct Conditions
In the shadow of the Islamic Republic’s rise in the early 1980s, a different kind of resistance was taking shape in the mountains of Iranian Kurdistan. It wasn’t just about ethnic identity or geography—it was about building a new kind of politics. At the heart of this struggle stood Komala, the Kurdistan Organization of the…
-
Sadegh Hedayat on Religion, Power, and Manufactured Ignorance
The struggle against religious superstition and the effort to sever the bond between religion and power have deep roots in Iran. Contrary to the widespread belief that secularism is purely a Western or modern phenomenon, Iranian history is rich with Enlightenment-driven efforts that have criticized religion not as a matter of faith, but as a…
-
Antigone in Exile: On Bombs, Borders, and the Silence We Refuse
While Israel rained missiles on Iranian cities and the Islamic Republic intensified its internal repression, I found myself sitting on ancient stone, watching Antigone under the open sky in Epidaurus. I am a political refugee from Iran—exiled, but not erased. This reflection is not just about one night of theater or one act of war.…
-
Between Theocracy and Monarchy: The Silencing of Iran’s Democratic Voices
In recent years, especially after the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising we have witnessed a phenomenon that has not only reshaped the political landscape of the Iranian diaspora, but also deeply challenged our understanding of concepts like freedom, secularism, and solidarity. The growing prominence of monarchist discourse in Persian-language media abroad, alongside the increasing number and…
-
We Are Not Your Martyrs: On Resistance, Racism, and Revolution
This morning, as I was going through the news, the images of a protest in front of the University of Tehran caught my attention—slogans full of nationalist passion, and that during the days of Muharram and Ashura! Hadn’t they been telling us for forty years that the entire Islamic worldview, the whole “truth of Shiism,”…
-
Iranian Labour Unions Condemn Mass Deportation of Afghan Migrants
Two Iranian labour organizations have condemned the mass deportation of Afghan migrants as “organized inhumanity” and “a political cover-up” for the Islamic Republic’s domestic and regional failures. According to official figures, more than 380,000 Afghan nationals have been expelled from Iran in a short period, mostly through the Dogharoun border crossing in eastern Iran. The…
