Posts tagged : "Ebrahim Raisi"

Kourosh Ziabari - Middle East Institute: At the start of January, Iran found itself embroiled in a new diplomatic spat. This time, the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s publication of cartoons pouring scorn on the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ruffled feathers in Tehran, and the foreign ministry vowed decisive action to prevent future affronts to “religious authority.” Unlike in Iran, media in the West are not supposed to take orders from the state, and the Iranian foreign ministry’s rage directed at the French government was obviously misplaced. Nonetheless, the Islamic Republic was quick to launch its first retaliatory measure, announcing the closure of a...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: On December 6, the mayor of Tehran, Alireza Zakani, was the special speaker at the Sharif University of Technology in a ceremony to mark Students Day. He was one of several conservative ideologues deployed to university campuses by the Iranian government to initiate dialogue with students and placate them as the nationwide protests triggered by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini in September showed no sign of abating. Universities were particular hotbeds of protest and activism. While the authorities consummated a campaign of mass arrests, sham trials and violence on the streets, they also touted “dialogue.” They made a stab at appealing to young people through speeches like the one...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: The nationwide uprising that ensued after the death of 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police in September added a new dimension to the global media coverage of Iran and dislodged the exclusive focus previously set on the country’s nuclear program and the stalled negotiations to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Now, the media are spotlighting the heroism of the Iranian women braving an overwhelming crackdown to reclaim their dispossessed rights, as well as the often-untold stories of ordinary citizens who are these days the protagonists of an epoch-making, dramatic struggle for freedom. These stories are being relayed to an...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: A month has rolled by since the outburst of nationwide protests over the death of the 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini arrested by Iran’s morality police for what the authorities argued was her “inappropriate hijab,” a movement that soon ballooned into a broader social revolt characterized by the centrality of women demanding freedom and equal rights. The core element of the uprising that has convulsed Iran has been the rejection of the grotesque morality police equally loathed by the religious women who wear hijab voluntarily and the more progressive, liberal-minded women who don’t wish to subscribe to the government-prescribed lifestyle. Iranian women have become emboldened...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Protests continue to roil Iran after the shocking death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman arrested by the morality police for an “improper hijab,” who is widely believed to have been beaten to death while in custody of the guards. Despite a crackdown that has so far claimed at least 76 lives, Iranians are not ready to back away and are raising their voices, more strongly than ever, demanding the abolition of the vice squads and the annulment of the hijab mandate. No apologies have been offered by the authorities, no resignations extended, and the Ministry of Interior, tasked with investigating the incident, insists that Mahsa Amini had pre-existing conditions that caused her to...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: The heinous stabbing attack against British-American novelist Salman Rushdie was so inexcusable that even the administration of hardline Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi disowned it, contending that the Islamic Republic could not be blamed for that outburst of violence against the persecuted writer, who had just begun to exercise some publicity after keeping a low profile for several years. But as the literary world was rallying around Rushdie to reiterate his right to free speech and denounce aggression to stifle contrarian thought, it transpired that the attack, celebrated by hardliners in Tehran as an act of divine vengeance against an apostate writer, was also silently saluted by members...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: One year since conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi rose to the presidency, his campaign promises to shield the Iranian economy from sanctions and lift it to new heights have gone wholly unfulfilled. As street protests against the dire state of the economy spread across the country, political stability is being put to a potential make-or-break test for the politically inexperienced leader. Iranian purchasing power has recently hit record lows amid runaway inflation, stagnant wages and a collapsing currency, galvanizing more and more Iranians to take to the streets to protest against their economic plight and the government’s perceived mismanagement. Despite the protests mushrooming across the country,...

Kourosh Ziabari - Al-Monitor: As the talks to revive the landmark 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action continue with uncertainty, the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi is stepping up pressure on activists and dissidents in a bid to ensure at least on the domestic front that it is able to rule the roost. Building on decades of experience in the judiciary where he served as chief justice for nearly three years between 2019-2021, Ebrahim Raisi is working with other branches of the government to stifle critical voices and tighten the noose around the media, political activists, artists and other influencers with unconventional views challenging the status quo, including the forlorn state of the...

Kourosh Ziabari - Middle East Institute: Iran and Russia, two isolated fossil fuel giants suffering under U.S. sanctions, are rapidly trying to develop new areas of bilateral cooperation in order to make up for their pariah statuses. But rather than being spurred by shared values or a history of warm ties, the Tehran-Moscow bond is incentivized by their shared enmities as well as short-term calculations about their present standing in the world. The 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which fast-tracked Moscow’s progressive estrangement from the West, drove Russia and the Islamic Republic to solidify their connections in the face of the United States’ apparent determination to cement their isolation. From reports that Iran...

Kourosh Ziabari - Foreign Policy: Progressive commentators in the United States who once championed U.S. President Joe Biden and touted his appetite for multilateralism as an advantage of his foreign policy are now openly criticizing the president for his Middle East approach. Specifically, they say it’s reminiscent of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s agenda and failed legacy in the region, epitomized by his catastrophic withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The argument is that Biden squandered moderate former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s final months in power in 2021 to finalize a JCPOA revival while a breakthrough was imminent and that he is...

Kourosh Ziabari - The New Arab: The administration of hard-line Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is busy unleashing a multi-pronged war on people’s lifestyles and privacy. Police vans are deployed to arrest women on the streets dressing in ways deemed to be insufficiently conservative, musical performances are called off intermittingly, and major cinematic productions are not licensed to be screened. Now, the unscathed unofficial spaces for young people to mingle and have fun away from the stern gaze of the authorities are being encroached on. Untitled Café in Rasht – a city in northern Iran known for its rich food culture, luxury shopping centres, upscale districts subsuming voguish clothing retailers and a...

Kourosh Ziabari - TRT World: It was once the largest saltwater lake in the Middle East, and the sixth largest on Earth. Along its fertile banks, civilisations rose and fell. It was the cradle of life, sustaining millions of lives through millennia — humans, animals, birds. It is now dying. Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran is fast on its way to desiccation or drying up. And the emergency management authorities of the West Azerbaijan province have warned as recently as July 14 that more than 95 percent of the highly saline lake’s water has disappeared. This follows a two-decade pattern of annually losing 40 centimetres of its water level. Although officials blame the runaway drying of the lake to the conundrum of climate change and...