The BBC and others are reporting that candidates for Iran’s upcoming presidential “elections” have begun to register. As readers of this blog are aware, Iran’s elections are really “selections”, not competitive electoral contests. In fact, the number of individuals deemed “qualified” by the Guardian Council is exceedingly small. From the BBC: In 2009, 475 hopefuls
Today is World Press Freedom Day 2013. Last year to mark this day we spoke with a series of activists and journalists to get a sense of the risks facing journalists in Iran. The result was this video: Sadly, not much has changed in the past year. In fact, it may be worse. Just as
In six weeks Iranians will be asked to “pick” the successor to the current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Never mind that potential candidates for elected office have to be pre-cleared by the unelected and democratically unaccountable Guardian Council, we still get to call this an “election”! However, given the experience of average Iranians the last time
The BBC has a nice primer this morning on the upcoming Iranian “elections”. We are happy to report that the the article is prefaced by a strong reminder regarding the legacy of the 2009 “election”. Four years later, two of the candidates are still under house arrest, hundreds of political activists are in prison and
Not that you are allowed to celebrate it if you are living in Iran. Chew on this little nugget from The Economist: THE theocrats who run the Islamic Republic of Iran are no great fans of Valentine’s day. A letter sent to Iran’s customs offices informed staff that this “decedent Western custom” was a “sacrilegious
It has been widely reported that Saeed Mortazavi, a former prosecutor and a close ally of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was arrested earlier this week on charges of “misappropriating public property”. The arrest is widely interpreted as a result of the continuing feud between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and one of Iran’s most powerful political families, the Larijanis. While his