09 Jun 11 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Sakhi Rigi was sentenced to 20 years in prison today for critiquing the 2009 Iranian presidential elections on his blog. He was arrested in 18 June 2009 and has received the longest sentence given to an Iranian blogger. Yesterday (8 June) Canadian-Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan lost his appeal against a 19-year prison sentence. Known as the “blogfather,” Derakhshan championed the internet as a means of social reform. He has been in prison since his arrest in 2008 for making disparaging remarks about important Shiite leaders. Both Derakhshan and Rigi were convicted of “aiding enemy states and propaganda against the Islamic system.”
07 Jun 11 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Ali Pour Soleiman, a blogger and teacher was arrested in Iran last week according to HRANA, the human rights activists news agency. He was a member of the Teacher’s Association wrote for Sokhane Molem a teacher’s blog. The charges he faces are unclear.
02 Jun 11 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Iranian activist, Haleh Sahabi, 56, died yesterday (1 June) after a scuffle with Iranian security personnel during her father’s funeral procession. Sahabi died in hospital after apparently suffering a heart attack. The regime tightly controls opposition funerals to ensure they do not become a catalyst for protests. Sahabi was a women’s rights activist, and government opponent like her father, Ezatollah Sahabi, 81, who founded one of Iran’s first independent papers, Iran-é-Farda. She was sentenced to a two year prison term for protesting during President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s swearing-in ceremony in August 2009. Sahabi was released on furlough from jail to attend to her ailing father.
29 May 11 | Iran, Middle East and North Africa
Eight years ago my colleagues and I set out to see what school life was like for 11-13 year olds around the world. I went to Iran, and spent several days with girls at a Tehran school. The building was a large house, once home to a wealthy Iranian family — I speculated they were possibly living in exile since, or forced into smaller accommodation, or perhaps the father was imprisoned or killed, if they had a son he may have been sent to the frontline during the Iran-Iraq war, or been lucky enough to flee the country if he was under 13 — the age of conscription. These houses were taken over by the revolutionary guard in 1979 and 1980 and such scenarios were common.
The school day began in the school courtyard — once the garden — the girls standing in rows in their black uniforms, for assembly. A large swimming pool stood empty along the left hand wall and the inside walls were covered in the regime’s flags. I stood to the side as the girls repeated the morning prayers and anti-West chants coming from a loudspeaker. I watched their faces, finding the same playful expressions of my own school assembly days. The focus may have been different but the distracted anticipation towards the day, best friends by our sides, was the same.
I saw many unfamiliar and disconcerting things while visiting the school, most notably a point system that was at play: The family living room remained furnished with a majestic Persian carpet but the room now served as the school’s prayer room. Girls removed their shoes at the door and entered at their own chosen time during different free periods throughout the day. For each visit to the prayer room they were awarded individual points, accumulated to be able to participate in fun school activities. But what I left the school with, was a sense of proximity to the outside world. The girls’ favourite stories were the Harry Potter books — in translation in the school library — their idea of beauty was Jennifer Lopez, the questions they asked me were those of girls at the cusp of puberty. Trends and fashion seep through even the most austere structures.
Earlier this month Jack Kirby wrote in Guardian Weekly about how the regime controls usage of the English language and the Western culture it provides access to, in Iranian schools and the rest of society.
Now a recent documentary gives us fresh insight into the daily lives of teenage girls in an Iranian school — from surface constraints and pupils being suspended for plucking their eyebrows, to a more important rare glimpse at the girls’ thoughts and ideas. Director Nahid Rezai was herself a pupil at the school 25 years ago and goes back to introduce herself to the pupils there, reflecting on her dreams and aspirations then, and asking the girls where they would like to be 20 years from now. More a series of vox pops commenting on every aspect of life, the film is exceptional viewing for anyone interested in the individual psyches of young women in Iran today. Watch it in five 10 minute parts here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLTNZJNP_MY
