Writings

Published by the National The country has many enemies, but few capable of inflicting a tragedy of this scale For the past four years, January 3 has been a tense day in the Middle East. It was on this day, in 2020, that the US took a shockingly bold action by assassinating Qassem Suleimani, a…

Published by IranWire Co-written with Aida Ghajar Every year since 1988, the European Parliament has awarded its Sakharov Prize to a recipient who has dedicated themselves to human rights and freedom of thought. The prize is named after a legendary Soviet dissident and goes to individuals who, like Andreĭ Sakharov, showed remarkable courage against tyranny.…

Published by IranWire A quarter a century ago, in the fall of 1998, a series of murders rocked Iranian society. Iran was then already in a state of agitation and political fever. A year and a half before, reformist Mohammad Khatami had been elected president in an unexpected upset. Despite Khatami’s moderate, limited political program,…

Published by IranWire Millions of Iranians have spent the past several weeks marking the first anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death and the grand movement that resulted from her murder. It has been a somber occasion. The nationwide protest movement that began in September 2022 has evidently failed in its central goal of dislodging the Islamic…

Published by IranWire A recent article on the concept of the “Aryan Race” in Nazi Germany and why this racist and criminal regime didn’t consider Iranians to be a part of it generated questions and inquiries. IranWire is publishing this article to address some of them.   The views raised in this article are that of the…

Published by IranWire “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. This well-known saying in the English language is well-suited to the study of history. As dangerous as outright fabrications can be, partial and selective facts can sometimes be even more misleading. A case in point is in the Nazi conception of the Aryan race and…

Published by IranWire Tehran could be a jolly place in the summer of 1939; at least for those enamored with the Iranian royal family. Earlier that year, the young and handsome crown prince Mohammadreza had traveled to Cairo to marry 17-year-old Fawzia Fuad, the sister of the Egyptian king. Described as a union of two…

انتشار در ایران‌وایر در میان دشنام‌های سیاسی رایج در جهان‌، «فاشیسم» و «فاشیست» شاید از همه بدتر باشد. این واژه اولین‌بار در جریان جنگ جهانی اول، توسط بنیتو موسولینیِ ایتالیایی استفاده شد که چندی بعد در صدر حزب فاشیست ملی کشورش به قدرت رسید. بعدها اما این مسلک را بیشتر با بدنام‌ترین جنایتکار قرن بیستم…

انتشار در ایران‌وایر توجه به زبان بدن در دیدارهای دیپلماتیک در ایران مورد توجه افکار عمومی قرار می‌گیرد؛ به‌ویژه در دیدار مقامات مختلف ایران و روسیه. این توجه‌ها معمولا صرف پیدا کردن شواهدی می‌شوند که سرسپردگی جمهوری اسلامی به حکومت کرملین را نشان دهند؛‌ رابطه‌ای نابرابر که البته برایش آن‌ قدر شواهد گسترده در قراردادهای…

Published by IranWire As is often the case in Iran, the country is in the grip of a series of events that are both shocking, and somehow not entirely surprising. Since Friday, July 8, at least 11 well-known public figures have been arrested. They include Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former deputy interior minister and trenchant critic of…

Published by IranWire In a year of calendar coincidences, the last days of April 2022 posed an especially a tricky one. While Holocaust Remembrance Day falls on April 27-28, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the only state in the world to deny the Holocaust as a matter of policy, celebrates its annual anti-Israel Quds Day…

انتشار در ایران‌وایر ایران‌وایر در روزهای اخیر ترجمه فارسی کتاب «زندگینامه مصور آن فرانک» را منتشر کرد. آن فرانک یکی از معروف‌ترین کودکان قربانی هولوکاست است که دفترچه خاطراتی که در روزهای زندگی مخفی خود می‌نوشت، نام او را برای همیشه زنده نگه داشت. او در پانزده سالگی قربانی هولوکاست شد؛ اما دفترچه خاطراتش نجات یافت…

Published by IranWire Azar Nafisi remembers well the first time she read Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, the poignant memoir of the Holocaust’s best-known child victim. “I was 11 years old,” she tells me in a phone interview from her home near Washington DC. “I stayed in my room until I finished it.…

Published by IranWire In his 90 years of life, the Nobel laureate, Anglican bishop and human rights activist Desmond Tutu touched countless lives, not only as a spiritual symbol of the South African nation but as a beacon of hope around the world. His spirited stance against the apartheid regime earned him the Nobel Peace…

انتشار در ایران‌وایر روز شنبه، ۱۱ دی، در آفریقای جنوبی روز وداع بود؛ وداع با «دزموند توتو»، کشیش کنشگری که عمری برای عدالت جنگید تا نه فقط نماد معنوی این ملت بلکه نماد آرمان‌های انسانی در سراسر جهان باشد.  *** اسقف توتو ۹۰ سال عمر کرد و هم جایگزینی حکومت آپارتاید با دموکراسی را به…

انتشار در ایران‌وایر شهر کوچک «کمبریج» در حومه «بوستون» در ایالت «ماساچوست» امریکا شاید بیش از هر جای دیگری در جهان پر از نهادهای دانشگاهی است. یکی از این نهادها، «موسسه برادِ ام‌آی‌تی و هاروارد» است؛ یک مرکز پژوهش بیوپزشکی ژنومیک که ۱۷ سال پیش بنیان نهاده شد.  رهگذران شاید ندانند پشت نمای شیشه‌ای و…

Published by IranWire Last August, just as many Americans were preoccupied with their summer holidays, the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan precipitated a human catastrophe: the rapid fall of the Afghan government and coming to power of the Taliban, a brutal terrorist organization now in charge of a country. While the US and many…

Published by IranWire In the summer of 2017, an Australian academic was the guest of honor at a newspaper office in Tehran. For those who follow the Iranian mediascape, the daily Kayhan is a familiar name. Once mocked by the travel guide Lonely Planet for being “slightly to the right of Genghis Khan”, Kayhan doesn’t just parrot the official positions of…

انتشار در ایران‌وایر چند روز پیش به نظر می‌رسید «سیمون شرکلیف»، سفیر جدید بریتانیا در تهران، در سمت جدید خود شروع  خوبی داشته است. او پیش از این نیز سه سال در دوران ریاست‌جمهوری «محمد خاتمی» که اوضاع متفاوت بود و سفرای خارجی امکان ارتباطات وسیع‌تری با جامعه مدنی داشتند، در ایران زندگی کرده و…