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Political Maturity in an Age of Binaries
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Ignorance is not harmless once it walks into the street. I learned that in 2004, watching Iranian football fans do a Nazi salute to German players, not out of ideology but out of emptiness — no history, no memory, no sense of what that gesture meant. Today I see a similar emptiness in parts…
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Panahi’s Cinema and the Art of Smuggling Truth
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At an event held in honor of courageous, resilient cinema, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi and legendary director Martin Scorsese sat down for a deep conversation about obstacles, inspirations, and the power of film under extreme restrictions. The talk, in New York, gave Panahi space to speak about the roots of his passion and how…
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Iran’s New ‘Hijab Situation Room’ and the Failure of Control
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On Friday, October 17, 2025, the secretary of Tehran province’s “Enjoining Good & Forbidding Wrong” headquarters, announced a new “Situation Room for Chastity & Hijab,” alongside the organization and activation of “more than 80,000 trained volunteers” plus 4,575 trainers and judicial auxiliaries (“zabet-e qazaei”). Officials framed it as a cultural-social campaign run with “cultural…
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How Taghvai’s Cinema Teaches Us to Replace Paranoia with Practice
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Nasser Taghvai, a renowned Iranian filmmaker and creator of enduring works, who for years resisted censorship and chose seclusion rather than making films under official policies, has passed away at 84. He was a pioneer of the Iranian New Wave and, at the same time, widely known to the public for his popular works.…
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Iran: CFT, FATF, and the Politics of Credible Execution
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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…
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UN Snapback on Iran: The Profiteers’ Economy vs. Public Welfare
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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…
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Iranian Cinema in a Shapeless Moment: Dissecting Survival, Agency, and Paradox in a Transitional Era
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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…
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Environmental Activism and Resistance in Kurdistan
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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.…
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Authoritarianism in Exile: the Future Iran Doesn’t Need
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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.…
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Kurdistan in Iran’s Crisis: Shared Struggles, Distinct Conditions
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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…
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Sadegh Hedayat on Religion, Power, and Manufactured Ignorance
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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…
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Antigone in Exile: On Bombs, Borders, and the Silence We Refuse
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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…