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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. It is about what it means to mourn truthfully, to speak when every structure urges silence, and to recognize the voices of resistance—from Sanandaj to Tehran to Qarchak Prison—as part of the same unbroken struggle. This 3 episode is a meditation on exile, war, and…
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Iran: CFT, FATF, and the Politics of Credible Execution
At its session on October 1, 2025, the Expediency Council approved Iran’s “conditional accession” to the Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (CFT). According to the Council’s spokesperson, this approval will be interpreted “within the framework of the Constitution and domestic laws.” Domestic and international media described the move as a step toward removing Iran from the FATF blacklist; earlier, in May 2025, the Council had also passed conditional accession to the “Palermo” convention (the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime). The CFT (adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1999) sets common mechanisms for criminalizing the…
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UN Snapback on Iran: The Profiteers’ Economy vs. Public Welfare
Sanctions are never just “sender vs. target.” They create corridors—ship-to-ship transfers, free-trade zones, real-estate havens—where sanctioned oil turns into offshore balances while basic goods at home get pricier. Unless diplomacy plus domestic rule-of-law closes these corridors, the profiteer economy outlives the sanctions and workers keep paying through prices, unsafe jobs, and repression. (This is exactly why labor groups push the ILO to investigate, expel regime-affiliated “worker” delegates, and recognize independent voices.) Sanctions are class policy by other means—but so are the Islamic Republic’s own policies. A security state fused with patronage capitalism has turned crisis into a business model: dual…
