Posts tagged : "Government"

Persepolis Kourosh Ziabari - Stimson Center: Modern-day Iran is the inheritor of a hallowed civilization and ancient monuments that have survived millennia of invasions, natural disasters, and political upheaval. While Iran’s current diplomatic and economic isolation discourages foreign tourism, the country’s cultural heritage remains one of the nation’s key distinctions, cherished by Iranians and many others around the world who hope to be able to explore it in person one day. There are presently 26 registered UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Iran, more than in Japan, the United States and Greece on the roster of places catalogued by the United Nations’ cultural and educational agency. Among them are well-known...

Kourosh Ziabari - Atlantic Council: The sweeping nationwide protests that followed the death of Mahsa Jina Amini in police custody on September 16, 2022 have been distinct from previous rounds of uprisings in Iran. Aside from the inclusive nature of the movement, which has straddled social boundaries and unified people of all stripes, the government crackdown has also been unprecedented. To quell what appeared to be a thundering revolutionary wave, the Islamic Republic unleashed violence, killing at least 524 people, making over nineteen thousand arrests, and, for the first time in years, engaging in a head-on confrontation with the nation’s most prominent artists, athletes, and celebrities who sympathized...

Kourosh Ziabari - Arab Center Washington DC: Over the past four months, the international community has been heaping praise on the Iranian people for their audacious uprising, which has been challenging the country’s clerical establishment despite a heavy-handed crackdown that is now being bolstered by a wave of retaliatory executions. The ongoing protest movement, whose spirit and core message have been captured in its unifying slogan, “Woman, Life, Freedom,” was initially ignited by the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, who died while in the custody of Iran’s “morality police,” a force that millions of Iranians have decried for its brutality and arbitrary enforcement of the...

Kourosh Ziabari - Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington: Thousands of Iranian pilgrims were stranded at the Iran-Iraq border in mid-September as they staged for the Arbaeen pilgrimage, an Islamic Republic-sponsored event marking the 40th day after the anniversary of the martyrdom of the third Shia imam, Hussein ibn Ali, in the Battle of Karbala. Reports about turmoil and instability at the border precipitated by the influx of crowds of pilgrims and the unpreparedness of the Iranian authorities were widespread in the run-up to the pilgrimage in neighboring Iraq. In one incident on September 11, 10 Iranian pilgrims died as the van carrying them crashed and exploded. On September 9, Iran’s Red Crescent...

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 - 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 - Foreign Policy: The atrocities in Bucha, Mariupol, and other Ukrainian cities have taken the severity of Russia’s war in Ukraine to a whole new level. Graphic footage emerging of bullet-riddled bodies with tied hands, charred corpses piled together dumped in the streets, and buildings and cars blown to pieces have exposed how an apparently unquenchable thirst for power and domination can be boundless. In response, Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Sweden, Spain, the United States and a handful of other countries expelled more than 325 Russian diplomats from Moscow’s missions. At the same time, the sanctions machinery of the United States and European Union is in full swing, and Russia is being targeted by...

Kourosh Ziabari - Foreign Policy: When Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was running for office, he famously said in a May 2021 televised debate how much he deplored the disruption that Iranian children who play online games experience due to the nation’s poor internet infrastructure and weak signals, arguing that he had plans to boost internet connectivity if elected. He made similar remarks about his displeasure that university students are being sealed off from their peers internationally because of the country’s flawed internet services. As simplistic as his youth outreach may have been, Raisi was trying to portray himself as a politician who related to the young population’s sensitivities around sustainable internet...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Nationwide protests over the Iranian government’s decision to cut subsidies on food and basic staples and the ensuing hyperinflation have diminished, but a kerfuffle involving the Islamic Republic and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has heightened tensions globally, driving the US dollar to historic highs in the Tehran market, and rendering the prospects of the revival of the nuclear deal dimmer than ever. The UN nuclear watchdog’s 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution on June 8 rebuking Iran for its limited cooperation with the IAEA and the traces of uranium at three nuclear sites about which it has provided insufficient explanations to the world body. Of the IAEA member...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran is set to relax a ban on importing cars, reversing an unpopular policy in force since 2018 that has left Iranians stuck on the road with poor-quality, locally-made automobiles. The move aims at stimulating more market competition in the large domestic auto industry as complaints grow that cosseted local producers have resorted to the worst of monopolistic behaviors. Iran’s auto industry accounts for a large percentage of the nation’s non-oil exports and employs nearly 800,000 workers. The two major car manufacturers, Iran Khodro and Saipa, are both state-owned, while a smattering of smaller firms is privately run. The country’s automotive sector is the biggest in the Middle East...

Kourosh Ziabari - The New Arab: In today's irreversibly globalised world, international travelling and mobility are not merely deemed a privilege, but a fundamental entitlement the informed and probing citizens of the 21st century assertively expect the governments to provide. To a large extent, the power of the passports people hold illustrates the standing of their countries in the community of nations, the shades of respectful treatment they receive while away from home, and in many cases, the boundaries of their freedoms and prerogatives. Last October, the London-headquartered global citizenship and residence advisory firm Henley & Partners published its quarterly repertoire of the most desirable passports in terms of their...

Kourosh Ziabari - Foreign Policy: In a bid to shore up its wobbly legitimacy, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration is appealing to the sizable Iranian diaspora to consider returning to its ancestral homeland and contribute to Iran’s economic, social, industrial, and technological development. As the ultraconservative cleric finds his government hamstrung by its own nebulous economic and foreign-policy agendas, capitalizing on the enterprise and assets of the thriving community of Iranians abroad could serve as a handy remedy to the nation’s myriad challenges. In December 2021, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian announced the administration was preparing to submit a bill to parliament to “support...