Posts tagged : "Society"

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Awqaf, Iran’s powerful religious endowments agency, answerable only to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and operating a portfolio generating nearly one-quarter billion US dollars annually, is facing intense scrutiny this week following reports it has seized a slice of the iconic Mount Damavand. “Investigations reveal that the Awqaf has secured an endowment deed for one out of 11 registered parcels of Mount Damavand, from the foothills to the summit,” reported Hamshahri, one of Iran’s most reputable national newspapers. The deed for the tranche of the nation’s most famous mountain was secured through a ruling by the Supreme Court, and without input from the national Forests, Range and Watershed...

Kourosh Ziabari - The New Arab: Protests over the continued scarcity of water in the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan have once again thrown into relief the economic and social woes of a region credited with being the beating heart of Iran's petroleum industry. The region routinely provides a boost to the national economy, while it simultaneously stagnates in poverty and underdevelopment. Gheyzanieh province boasts a population of 25,000 and is located 40 kilometres east of Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan Province. It hosts the largest petroleum companies of Iran, and produces 2 million barrels of crude oil per day. The district sits on upwards of 600 oil wells. The majority of Gheyzanieh residents are farmers or have...

Kourosh Ziabari - openDemocracy: Six months after the Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 catastrophe, families of the 176 victims and the governments involved, are still waiting for accountability. On the morning of 8 January, the Kiev-bound UIA flight PS752 crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran’s international airport, killing all passengers and crew members on board. Iran’s aviation authorities initially attributed the deadly incident to technical error in the aircraft. However, intelligence agencies of a number of countries sounded the alarm that the jetliner was targeted by missiles most probably fired from a close range and that technical error was out of the question. After three days of denial, the...

Kourosh Ziabari - Responsible Statecraft: The exodus of Afghan immigrants fleeing Iran in the recent weeks because of the novel coronavirus outbreak in the Islamic Republic has largely gone off the radar of global media, but is actually a tragedy that has the potential of spawning broad, devastating consequences. Iran has been hosting between 3 and 4 million Afghans, of whom only 1 million are registered refugees with legal status and entitlement to government support. Afghans in Iran have faced discrimination on different levels, and unequal access to healthcare services is one of them. For decades, international organizations have been offering financial assistance to Iran to subsidize its support for the Afghan...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran, like the rest of the world, has seen the novel coronavirus wreak havoc on public health, the economy, education, and transportation. But in the Islamic republic, the pandemic is also exposing social and religious rifts that have been simmering under the surface for decades, and which come to light at times of crisis. The Iranian authorities on March 16 announced that the shrine of the eighth Shiite Imam Reza in the holy city of Mashhad and the shrine of his sister, the revered Fatimah bint Musa, in the pilgrimage city of Qom, would be closed down to preclude the spread of Covid-19, as both of these sites are used for congregational prayers. Qom was the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: When the Iranian government announced that schools and public offices would be closed from February 23 to curb the spread of coronavirus in Iran, many Tehran residents took precautions and stayed home. But thousands of others flocked to the northern province of Guilan on the shores of the Caspian Sea, seeking a respite from the virus-hit capital, camping and fresh air. That region has since been identified as a flashpoint in the health crisis, following only Tehran and the holy city of Qom for the highest number of cases and fatalities, with 218 confirmed cases and four deaths. In late February, a 25-year-old nurse working on the coronavirus response team at Guilan province’s Milad Hospital,...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran’s fatal downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet earlier this month has reverberated to the world of soccer, chipping away at the Islamic Republic’s right to host matches against its Asian neighbors. On January 18, the Asian Football Confederation sent a letter to four Iranian clubs competing in the 2020 edition of AFC Champions League, notifying them that they would be banned from hosting their home games inside Iran, and that these matches had to be moved to neutral venues. The governing body of soccer in Asia cited “security concerns” in explaining why the Iranian sides were denied their hosting rights. There was little doubt that the fatal downing of a civilian aircraft belonging to...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: The fatal downing by Iran of a Ukrainian passenger jet earlier this month touched a nerve across Iran, but few places have felt the collective loss more sharply than Sharif University of Technology – the alma mater of 14 of the victims. Known as Iran’s MIT, Sharif University of Technology is arguably the top higher education institute in Iran, with an extremely low admission rate. Only some of the best and brightest students manage to be accepted to its programs. “These young academics were the treasures of their community and country,” said Fatemeh, an undergraduate student at Sharif University who lost an acquaintance and a distant relative on the flight. “They were not appreciated in...

Kourosh Ziabari - Al-Monitor: Harsh verdicts issued against journalists and political activists show that the cost of advocacy for reform and civil liberties is still high in Iran despite pledges by moderate President Hassan Rouhani to change the status quo. Marzieh Amiri, a journalist with the Reformist Shargh, was sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison and 147 lashes last month. She was arrested while covering an International Workers Day rally in Tehran. According to Reporters Without Borders, she is now one of 10 female journalists behind bars in Iran. Another Iranian journalist recently handed a heavy sentence is Kioomars Marzban, a filmmaker and satirist who was convicted of security charges including...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Malawi is one of the most impoverished nations on the planet. It is experiencing what officials describe as a “population explosion” in a society with inadequate resources. As of 2018, Malawi is the third poorest country in the world with a GDP per capita of only $342, according to the International Monetary Fund. Over 90,000 people in the landlocked African country live with HIV/AIDS, which accounts for one in 10 adults. HIV/AIDS is one of the main reasons why Malawian children become vulnerable or orphaned. The country is in dire need of advanced medical services and facilities and trained physicians, and there is only one doctor for every 50,000 individuals. Climate change and global...

Kourosh Ziabari - Al-Monitor: A prominent Iranian TV commentator's move to the United Kingdom to join an opposition station after a long career at Iran’s state TV has revived a longstanding debate over the public approval of IRIB, the sole national broadcaster holding a monopoly over domestic radio and television services in Iran. Mazdak Mirzaei is a 48-year-old soccer commentator and TV show host who has moved to the UK to work with Iran International, a London-based TV channel launched in May 2017, which is believed to be funded by a “secretive offshore entity and a company” whose director is a Saudi Arabian businessman with close ties to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Iran International regularly features guests...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Three months after flash floods submerged large swaths of Iran and nearly two years after a massive earthquake devastated its western Kermanshah Province, the suffering of crisis-stricken Iranians seems to have been consigned to oblivion.  Paralyzed by crushing US sanctions, the government of President Hassan Rouhani has performed poorly in delivering aid to people living in the affected areas, and construction efforts have been dismally sluggish as thousands of Iranians are still homeless and living in shelters and makeshift camps. No where is that suffering more obvious than Iran’s already neglected minority regions, which have born the brunt of climate change and snowballing natural...