Category: All Events

History in Perspective: What Actually Drives the Saudi Rivalry with Iran?, Banafsheh Keynoush, May 13, 2018

Banafsheh Keynoush is a foreign affairs scholar and the author of “Saudi Arabia and Iran: Friends or Foes?” She received her PhD at Tufts University. She was recently a Visiting Scholar at Princeton University, and a Visiting Fellow at the King Faisal Center for Islamic Studies and Research in Saudi Arabia. She is an adjunct professor, and a geopolitical consultant, and writes and speaks extensively on the Middle East.

Iranian Fake News & the Role of Security Apparatus, Iraj Mesdaghi, Mar 3, 2018

Iraj Mesdaghi began his political life in the United States with the Confederation of Iranian Students and returned to Iran during the 1979 revolution. In 1981, he was arrested because of his activities with the People’s Mojahedeen of Iran and spent the next decade in prison. He fled to Sweden in 1994 where he resumed his political activities. Mesdaghi has written various books and articles on 1988 mass executions of political prisoners in Iran, including the 4 volume book “Neither life Nor Death” about his 10 year experience in prisons, and ”Hell On Earth” investigating the ideological roots of torture in the Islamic Republic. He is currently an independent activist and researcher working on human rights, workers’ rights and prison issues.

A look at the narratives of social and cultural trauma in modern Iranian fiction, Omid Fallahazad, Feb 18, 2018

Omid Fallahazad is a bilingual fiction writer. His recent novel in Farsi, Gahvareye Div (NaaKojaa, 2016) centers on house burning riots in Shiraz against Bahai’s on the eve of the Iranian Revolution and the controversies surrounding the incident. His other works in Farsi include a collection of short stories, Se Tir-baran Dar Se Dastan (H&S Media, 2016), and a best-selling young adult novella, Razi (Madreseh, 2001). Omid’s English stories has appeared in publications such as Glimmer Train, Paul Revere’s Horse, World Literature Today, and in Tremors, an anthology of Iranian-American writers. He and his wife, media artist, Rashin Fahandej, live with their daughter near Boston, Massachusetts.

A Lecture by Dr. Zahra Taheri, Scholar Topic: سکوت کهن آینه, Jan 7, 2018

Dr. Taheri studied classical and contemporary Persian literature in Iran at Pahlavi (Shiraz) University, and received her Master’s degree in Persian studies from the Pajuheshkade-ye Farhang-e Iran, and her PH.D from the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. During the last two decades she has taught Persian literature, language, Iranian history and culture, and Gender and culture courses in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley (USA), the Department of Persian Studies at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (Japan), and Australasian National University (Australia). Her first book, Hozur-e peyda va penhan-e zan dar mutun-e sufiyyeh was published by the Institute of Asian and African Studies, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies/Japan in 2007. Her second book “The Ancient Silence of Mirrors” (Sokut-e Kohan-e ‘Ayene-haa) has been published in Japanese in Tokyo, and Persian by Nashr-e Sales in Iran. She is currently working on her upcoming book on “The Image of Women in Persian Ethical Texts.” This research project received a fellowship from the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford in 2016-2017. Taheri is also a published poet with two collections of poetry: Milad and Pegaah-e Nokhostin. Her third poetry book “Daaman be Khaak Mikeshad Maah” is in the process of being published by “Nashr-e Sales” in Iran.

Forced Migration of Kurds to Khorasan, the role of Shiite religion, Iraj Ghahremanloo, Sep 10, 2017

ایرج قهرمانلو از یک خانواده کورد کرمانجی در یکی‌ از روستا‌های پیرامون کوچان (قوچان) دیده به جهان گشود . وی دوره دبیرستان را در کوچان گذرانید و در سال ۱۳۵۱ دوره دکترای پزشکی خود را در دانشگاه مشهد به پایان رساند. در دوران دانشجوئی به عضویت سازمان مجاهدین خلق در آمد. دکتر قهرمانلو پس از ۳ سال کار سازمانی بویژه تماس با رهبری، جهت گیری سازمان را درست نمی انگاشت. پس از گذرانیدن دورانهای دشوار درون سازمانی، سر انجام با نا امیدی و سر خوردگی بسیار در فروردین ۱۳۵۱ از سازمان جدا شد. چند ماه بعد، رابطه سازمانی او بر ساواک آشکار گردید و در آذر ۱۳۵۱ دستگیر شد.
و پس از شکنجه بسیار به یک سال زندان محکوم شد. اندکی پس از آزادی، در ۲۸ مرداد ۱۳۵۲ ساواک اطلاعات تازه‌ا‌ی در باره گستردگی ارتباطات وی با مجاهدین بدست آورد و او را دوباره دستگیر کرد. ساواک این بار او را به خاطر پنهان نگاه داشتن اطلاعات در بار نخست به گونه انتقامی شکنجه داد و برای درازمدت زندانی کرد. در خیزش انقلابی سال ۱۳۵۷ بیاری مردم از زندان آزاد شد و سپس با افراد و گروهای سیاسی بدون وابسته شدن به فعالیت سیاسی ادامه داد. دکتر قهرمانلو در همین دوران نیز تخصص پزشکی کودکان را از دانشگاه تهران بدست آورد. شوربختانه اما، با تیره شدن اوضاع سیاسی ایران و دستگیری دوستان و حتی خانواده‌های بیمارانش ناچار شد پیش از آنکه پلیس سیاسی جمهوری ایران به سراغش بیاید، در سال ۱۳۶۳ با خانواده از ایران خارج شود.

A lecture by Mansoureh Sabetzadeh, Jul 23, 2017

Mansoureh Sabtzadeh has a Ph.D. in Persian Language and Literature from the Islamic Azad University (Research and Science branch) in Tehran, Iran. Since 1994 she has been an Assistant Professor at the Islamic Azad University, South Tehran branch and as director of center for Iranian Musicology, she has coordinated related research programs. Dr Sabetzadeh is a scholar of Persian language and literature, dance, folklore, and traditional Iranian music, with an emphasis on musical influences in Persian language and literature.

What Does Resistance Look like Now?, Judith Butler, Jun 15, 2017

Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale University in 1984.

She is the author of several books: Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France (1987), Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990), Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (1993), The Psychic Life of Power: Theories of Subjection (1997), Excitable Speech (1997), Antigone’s Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death (2000), Precarious Life: Powers of Violence and Mourning (2004); Undoing Gender (2004), Who Sings the Nation-State?: Language, Politics, Belonging (with Gayatri Spivak in 2008), Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? (2009), and Is Critique Secular? (co-written with Talal Asad, Wendy Brown, and Saba Mahmood, 2009) and Sois Mon Corps (2011), co-authored with Catherine Malabou. Her most recent books include: Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism (2012), Dispossession: The Performative in the Political (co-authored with Athena Athanasiou 2013), Senses of the Subject and Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015). And in 2016, she published a co-edited volume, Vulnerability in Resistance, with Duke University Press. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

A Talk by Niloufar Talebi: Abraham in Flames, May 21, 2017

Niloufar Talebi is a writer, award-winning translator, producer, and multidisciplinary artist. She is the Editor/Translator of Belonging: New Poetry by Iranians Around the World (North Atlantic Books/2008), the translator of Vis & I (l’Aleph, 2017), and creator of multimedia works, ICARUS/RISE and The Persian Rite of Spring: the story of Nowruz. Ms. Talebi was a Resident Artist with the American Lyric Theater and the Washington National Opera, where she developed two operas as part of her Persian Opera Cycle.

Travel Ban Executive Order & Impacts on the Iranian Community, Elica Vafaie, Apr 23, 2017

Elica Vafaie is an Iranian American attorney at the Asian Law Caucus where her work focuses on the immigrant rights and national security. Over the last two months, she has been working on cases involving Iranian Americans at SFO. Prior to Asian Law Caucus, Elica worked as the supervising attorney to establish the University of California Undocumented Legal Services Center providing free immigration legal services to students and their families across California. Elica received her B.A. from UC Irvine and her J.D from UC Davis School of Law, where she was active in the Immigration Law Clinica and was a UC
Human Rights Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Woman’s Body behind the Hedjab of Tradition and Religion, Najmeh Mousavi, Jan 22, 2017

Najmeh Mousavi is a bilingual writer and translator currently living in Paris. She was born in Tehran, Iran. She began her study of Sociology in Shiraz University in Iran and graduated from Sorbonne.
She holds a Ph.D. in Social and Urban Development and currently works as a Senior Consultant on several EU projects in France.
She has collaborated with Persian language magazine “Arash” as an editor since 1996. She is the founder of French language magazine “Pol”.

Evolution of the Two-party System in America and its Impact on the Presidential Election. Massud Alemi, Oct 16, 2016

Massud Alemi is a bilingual writer/translator currently living in Maryland. He was born in Tehran, Iran, and emigrated to the United States for higher education in 1977. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 provided the excuse he needed to study history. He’s been preoccupied with the roots of the Islamic revolution in the country of his birth, a preoccupation that led him to writing. He graduated from George Mason University in Virginia, and went on to get an MBA. His debut novel, Interruptions, was published in 2008. He most recently translated into Persian The Federalist Papers, “the most instructive treatise we possess on federal government,” according to Alexis de Tocqueville. He included in this volume a translation of the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.

Workshop, Fakherddin Azimi, Jun 27, 2016

Fakhreddin Azimi is Professor of History at the University of Connecticut. His fields of research are the history, politics and culture of modern Iran. He is also interested in social and political theory, the epistemological foundations of historical enquiry, and the contribution of the social sciences to historiography.
He has written widely in both English and Persian, and is the author of the following books:
— The Quest for Democracy in Iran: a Century of Struggle against Authoritarian Rule
(Harvard University Press, 2008; paperback 2010), which won the Mossadegh Prize of the Mossadegh Foundation, and the Saidi-Sirjani Award, International Society for Iranian Studies, and was a finalist in the Non-Fiction Category for the Connecticut Book Award, Connecticut Center for the Book.
— Iran: The Crisis of Democracy, from the Exile of Reza Shah to the Fall of Musaddiq (New York & London, 1989, revised paperback edition, 2009) translated into Persian as Bohran-e Demokrasi dar Iran, 1320-1332 (revised, with a new introduction, Tehran 1994, 3rd edition, 2008).
— National Sovereignty and its Enemies: Probing the Record of Mosaddeq’s Opponents
(Persian; Tehran 2004, 2010)
–Reflections on Mosaddeq’s Political Thinking: Essays on Iranian History, Politics & political Culture (Persian; Tehran, 2015).

Religious Revival and Civil Society in post- Reza Shah Iran, Fakherddin Azimi, Jun 26, 2016

Fakhreddin Azimi is Professor of History at the University of Connecticut. His fields of research are the history, politics and culture of modern Iran. He is also interested in social and political theory, the epistemological foundations of historical enquiry, and the contribution of the social sciences to historiography.
He has written widely in both English and Persian, and is the author of the following books:
— The Quest for Democracy in Iran: a Century of Struggle against Authoritarian Rule
(Harvard University Press, 2008; paperback 2010), which won the Mossadegh Prize of the Mossadegh Foundation, and the Saidi-Sirjani Award, International Society for Iranian Studies, and was a finalist in the Non-Fiction Category for the Connecticut Book Award, Connecticut Center for the Book. …

خودی و ناخودی: حکایت دیروز و امروز و همیشه, Homa Sarshar, May 25, 2016

Homa Sarshar was born in Shiraz on 1946, and raised in Tehran. From 1964 to 1978, she worked as a correspondent, reporter, and columnist for Zan-e Ruz weekly magazine and Kayhan daily newspaper in Iran. During this period, she also worked as a television producer, director, and talk-show host for National Iranian Radio & Television. In 1978, Sarshar moved to Los Angeles where she resumed her career as a freelance journalist, radio and television producer, and on-air host. In 1982 as the co-producer, writer, and talk-show host of Omid Radio she co-founded a daily AM radio broadcast for the Los Angeles based Iranian immigrant community. Since 1993 Sarshar has been a trusted advisor by the Human Rights Watch the Hellman/Hammett grant program for writers all around the world who have been victims of political persecution and are in financial need. Throughout her 49-year career with Iranian and Iranian-American print, radio, and television, Sarshar has done more than 1500 interviews and has produced and anchored as many radio and television programs.

Seminar on Iran, Islam and modernity. Abbas Milani. April 10, 2016-4parts

seminar on Iran, Islam and modernity. Abbas Milani. Part I. April 10, 2016 The seminar, conducted in Persian, will first inquire into the nature of modernity, debates in Iran and in the west about its origins, desirability and constituent elements, followed by a discussion of the rise of Shiism, its…

A Talk by Mokhtar Paki, Author & Painter, Feb 21, 2016

Mokhtar Paki born in Shiraz, received his M.A. in architecture from Science & Technology University in Norway, and as a visiting student at Oxford Polytechnic University finished his theses on “Reconstruction of Disaster Stricken Regions”. His professional work includes reconstruction and rehabilitation of schools, and clinics for veterans. He received his second M.A. in Creative-writing from San Francisco State University in 1996.

Since 1987, his short stories and articles have appeared in various journals in Iran, Europe and U.S. His latest novel “Sharhzade Sokoot” has been recently published. Mokhtar is also a painter, and he teaches art.

New Visa Waiver Program Restrictions, Nancy Hormachea, Jan 24, 2016

Nancy Hormachea has been practicing immigration and refugee law in the Bay Area for more than 30 years. Nancy was one of the founding organizers of the San Francisco Immigrant Legal & Education Network [SFILEN] that provides pro bono immigration services and advocacy for SF immigrant communities and later co-founder of Omid Advocates for Human Rights in 2009. Nancy was member of the Legal Steering Committee for the Iran Tribunal in 2012. In 2003 Nancy was honored as an Outstanding Woman by the City of Berkeley for her exceptional work on behalf of immigrant women. Nancy continues to mentor aspiring immigrant advocates and volunteers with several community organizations.

Solitary confinement, Persian Literature – Plus a story reading of “Water’s Memory”, Shahriar Mandanipour, Aug 16, 2015

Shahriar Mandanipour has held fellowships at Brown University, Harvard University, Boston College, and at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. His honors include the Mehregan Award for the best Iranian children’s novel of 2004, the 1998 Golden Tablet Award for best fiction in Iran during the previous two decades, and Best Film Critique at the 1994 Press Festival in Tehran. Mandanipour is the author of nine volumes of fiction, one nonfiction book, and more than 100 essays in literary theory, literature and art criticism, creative writing, censorship, and social commentary. From 1999 until 2007, he was Editor-in-Chief of Asr-e Panjshanbeh (Thursday Evening), a monthly literary journal that after 9 years of publishing was banned. Short works have been published in France, Germany, Denmark, and in languages such Arabic, Turkish, and Kurdish. Mandanipour’s first novel to appear in English, Censoring an Iranian Love Story, translated by Sara Khalili and published by Knopf in 2009 was very well received, and was awarded (Greek ed.) the Athens Prize for Literature for 2011. The novel has been translated and published in 11 other languages and in 13 countries.

Drama-Therapy, Manijeh Mohamedi, Jul 15, 2015

Manijeh Mohamedi, theater arts graduate from San Francisco State University, with master degree in drama-therapy (RDT), has over 45 years experience in theatrical arts and over 20 years experience in teaching drama in universities, acting schools, community centers and colleges in Iran, and acting schools in US.

Manijeh with her extensive experience in drama-therapy has addressed individual and group emotional issues through theater and a variety of presentation workshops. She has designed workshops for prisoners, war victims and their families, as well as adolescents, emotionally disturbed and disabled individuals and elderly.

Flight into Darkness – A Political Biography of Shapour Bakhtiar, Hamid Shokat, Jan 25, 2015

Hamid Shokat is a prolific writer of political history. He has published “Background on the Transition to the One-Party System in Soviet Russia, 1917-1921”, “The Lost Years – From the October Revolution to Lenin’s Death”, “History of the Confederation of Iranian Students” in two volumes, and four volumes in a series of books titled “An Inside Look into the Iranian Left Movement – Conversations with Mehdi Khanbaba Tehrani, Iraj Kashkuli, Koroush Lashaii and Mohsen Rezvani”, “The Political Biography of Ahmad Qavam” (Qavam-os-Saltana), one of the most controversial and pivotal figures of Iran in the twentieth century and most recently “Flight into Darkness – A Political Biography of Shapour Bakhtiar”, The last Prime Minister of Iran under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.

Ahmed Kasravi’s Status in Iran’s Modern Historiography, Alireza Manafzadeh, Oct 19, 2014

علیرضا مناف زاده دارای دیپلم تحصیلات عالی در رشتۀ تاریخ و جامعه‌شناسی از دانشکدۀ عالی علوم اجتماعی پاریس است. وی مقاله‌های زیادی دربارۀ ایران و فرانسه به فارسی در مجله‌هایی مانند “ایران نامه” در آمریکا و “نگاه نو” در ایران چاپ کرده است. او چندین کتاب به زبان فارسی ترجمه کرده و همچنین دو کتاب به نام های “احمد کسروی، مردی که می‌خواست ایران را از تاریک اندیشی برهاند” و “ساخت و پرداخت هویتی در ایران” به زبان فرانسه به چاپ رسانده ‌است. درحال حاضربا بخش فرانسوی «رادیو بین‌المللی فرانسه» کار می‌کند و مقاله‌های او در آنجا به چاپ می رسد و هرهفته نیز یک برنامۀ دوزبانه (فارسی و فرانسه) برای این رادیو درزمینۀ مسائل فرهنگی و تاریخی و فلسفی تهیه می‌کند.

The Psychology of Torture, Nouriman Ghahari, Sep 14, 2014

Dr. Ghahari obtained her doctoral degree in Counseling Psychology with her final thesis focused on the victims of torture and imprisonment in Iran. She has continued her work in research, writing, and teaching in the field of personal and social injury caused by political violence and other psycho-social problems. She currently teaches at Felician College in New Jersey, and at the same time provides counseling to patients with psycho-social injuries, depression, anxiety, and family issues as well as educating parents.

Transition from Iranian Nationality to Modernity, Fazel Gheybi, Aug 17, 2014

Fazel Gheybi was born 1954 into a Bahai family with Zoroastrian background in Tehran. In his early years he learned the Bahai-writings from Farhang Holakouee. He finished his studies with emphasis on computer engineering in 1983 in Germany. Meanwhile he showed interest in Marxism and sympathized with the “Tudeh-Party”, which he was turned away from in 1984. Fazel Gheybi works at the Technical University of Darmstadt, at the Institute of Experimental Nuclear Physics. After attending Philosophy courses in Frankfurt for 2 years, he continued the self-study of Philosophy and History. His work “Modern Philosophy and Iran” was published in 2011.

Political prisoners families from 60’s to green movement, Freshteh Ghazi, June 29, 2014

Fereshteh Ghazi is an Iranian journalist. She has worked in more than 18 newspapers in Iran which all have been banned: Khordad, Hammihan, Hambastegi, Bonyan, Etemad. She was arrested in 2004 and was deprived to work until 2007 that she left Iran. Ever since, she has worked in Roozonline website, publishing more than a thousand reports and interviews, mostly concentrated on cases of human rights, especially those who were killed in post-election events, political prisoners and executions.

Some Reflections on a Recent Debate in Iran over the Politics of Armed Struggle in the Pre-Revolutionary Period, Ali Tusi, Jun 8, 2014

After receiving his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1985, Ali Ferdowsi studied as a post-doctoral fellow in the Graduate Program in Demography at the University of California, Berkeley. He taught for three years as a visiting professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Tokyo University for Foreign Studies in Japan.
After working for five years as an International Specialist for NHK (Japan Broadcast Corporation), he returned to the United States in 1997 and began teaching in the Department of History and Political Science at Notre Dame de Namur University.

The Legend of Gilgamesh, Bahram Beyzaei, Nov 10, 2013

Bahram Beyzaie is one of Iran’s most acclaimed filmmakers, playwrights, and scholars of the history of Iranian theater, both secular and religious. He was a leader of the generation of filmmakers known as the Iranian New Wave, beginning in the late 1960s, and has since directed more than a dozen prize-winning films. He has also conducted pioneering research into the roots of ancient legends derived from Indo-Iranian mythology and known collectively as A Thousand and One Nights. He is that rare artist who is also an erudite critic and scholar of his myriad crafts.

Born in Tehran, Beyzaie was for many years the head of the Theatre Arts Department at Tehran University. His two volume study of the history of Iranian theatre is still considered the authoritative account of this history. Since his arrival at Stanford as the Bita Daryabari Lecturer of Persian Studies, he has staged several of his plays and given workshops on Iranian mythology and cinema. He currently teaches courses on Iranian theatre and cinema.

“The Open Language”, Dariush Ashuri, Oct 6, 2013

Darioush Ashouri studied at the Faculty of Law, Political Sciences and Economics of the University of Tehran, and has been visiting professor of Persian language and literature at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Ashoori taught at the Oriental Institute of the University of Oxford, and lectured on political philosophy and political sociology at the University of Tehran. From 1970 to 1978 Ashoori was a member of the second Academy of Persian Language.

Ashoori has worked extensively as an author, essayist, translator, literary interpreter, encyclopedist, and lexicologist. His intellectual interests cover a wide interdisciplinary range, including political sciences, literature, philosophy and linguistics. His main domain of intellectual focus is the cultural and linguistic matters of his native country, Iran, as a Third World country encountering modernity.

He has made vast contributions to the development of the Persian vocabulary and terminology in the domains of human sciences and philosophy by coining new words and modifying existing ones. His works in this domain are compiled in his Farhang-e ‘olum-e ensāni (A Dictionary of Human Sciences). Among his major works stands a hermeneutical, intertextual study of the Divan of Hafez (Erfān o rendi dar she’r-e Hafez) which introduces a new approach to the understanding of the great classical poet. As translator, he has translated numerous classical literary and philosophical works by Nietzsche, Machiavelli, Shakespeare and others into Persian.

A Poetry Reading by Esmail Khoei, Sep 8, 2013

Holding a PhD degree in philosophy from the University of London and a native of Mashad, Khorasan Province, Esmail Khoi is a philosophical poet, whose work has been frequently commented in the country.

Khoi, who received his secondary education in Meshed, immigrated abroad after the victory of Islamic Revolution and he is presently teaching or researching in England (2004). The loss of his son was a big shock for the poet and made him more and more despondent.

His focus on art gives special vigor and firmness to his structure. When deeply immersed in literature, Esmail makes a medium for social discourse and philosophical speculation.

His heavy and artistic poetry has an epic tune, which proves that poets bred in Khorasan, cannot forget their epic ancestors.

His language is eloquent, ringing and pedantic with well-selected words.

Works
On the Galloping Stallion of Earth, On the Roof of Whirlwind, Of Those Seafarers, Beyond the Night of the Present, To Sit by the Seashore and Exist, We Who Existed and Slumbering at the Ever Every Morning London.

Shah and Roots of 1979 Revolution, Dr. Milani, August 4, 2013

Dr. Abbas Milani is the director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University. He is the author of The Shah, Eminent Persians: The Men and Women Who Made Modern Iran, 1941-1979, The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution, Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran, Encounters with Modernity, On Democracy and Socialism, and Tales of two Cities: a Persian Memoir.

Book Talk,”Children of The Jacaranda Tree”, Sahar Delijani, Aug 2, 2013

Sahar Delijani was born in Tehran, Iran in 1983, and graduated in Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Her internationally acclaimed debut novel, Children of the Jacaranda Tree, has been translated into 30 languages and published in more than 75 countries.
One of the most talked about books of London Book Fair 2012, Children of the Jacaranda Tree was the Second Finalist for Elle Gran Premio 2014, a Great Group Read 2014 Selection by Women’s National Book Association, a Kansas City Star’s Top 10 Books of 2013, a July 2013 Indie Next Great Read, La Stampa’s literary protagonist of 2013, Vogue India’s Top 10 Big Reads of 2014, and a candidate for Prix des Lecteurs Sélection 2015 by Le Livre de Poche.
Twice a Puschcart nominee, Delijani’s writings have appeared in a wide range of literary publications and journals including BBC Persian, The Bellevue Review, Corriere della Sera, La Nazione, Read it Forward, Slice Magazine, Perigee Publications and Berkeley Poetry Review.
Delijani lives between Europe and California.

The UN Special Procedures and Situation of Human Rights in Iran, Ahmad Shahid July 15, 2013

Dr Ahmed Shaheed is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Essex in Colchester, England and at the City University of New York in the United States. He served as Foreign Minister of the Republic of Maldives from 2005 to 2007 and from 2008 to 2010, during which he led the country’s efforts to sign and ratify all nine international human rights Conventions; to implement them in law and practice; and to improving the country’s compliance with its UN Treaty Body reporting obligations. Dr Shaheed also opened the Permanent Mission of the Maldives in Geneva in 2006 to engage with the United Nations Human Rights Council; established a non-governmental human rights organisation in the Maldives to contributed to civil society’s work to advance respect for human rights in the country; and later worked as a member of the Presidential Commission to Investigate Corruption and as a foreign policy advisor to the President of the Maldives. On 17 June 2011, the President of the UN Human Rights Council appointed Dr Shaheed, as the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mr Shaheed commenced his duties officially on 1 August 2011. He has since submitted four reports to the United General Assembly and the Human Rights Council on the human rights situation in the country.

Iranian Presidential Election 2013, Iraj Mesdaghi, June 9, 2013

Iraj Mesdaghi began his political life in the United States with the Confederation of Iranian Students and returned to Iran during the 1979 anti-monarchist revolution.

In 1981, he was arrested because of his activities with the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran and spent the next decade in prison. He is currently an independent activist and researcher working on Human Rights, Workers’ Rights and prison issues.
Iraj Mesdaghi has written a four volume book titled “Neither Life nor Death”. This work is a compilation of reports and memories of life in the Islamic Republic’s jails. He has also published a collection of prison songs “ BAR SAGEHI-E TABIEDAYE KANAF” about the massacres of 1988. His latest book “Hell on Earth”, is about prisons of the Islamic Republic. In addition, Iraj Mesdaghi has written extensively on human rights violations of the Islamic Republic on various Persian Internet sites.

The Political Role of Thugs and Hooligans in Contemporary Iranian History, Masoud Noghreh-kar April 28, 2013

Massoud Noghrehkar is an activist, researcher and a very prolific writer living in the United States. He has authored many books in variety of fields including; the history of intellectual movement in Iran and Iranian Writers’ Association; dissent and mass murder of dissidents in Iran; psychology and medicine; and novels & short stories. His latest novel is titled “Bachehay-e Amagh”.

Iranian Women’s Uprising, Mahnaz Matin, Apr 14, 2013

Mahnaz Matin and Naser Mohajer
On March 6, 1979, only a few weeks after assuming political power, Ayatollah Khomeini pronounced “… women must be clothed according to religious standards.” Offended and outraged by the Ayatollah’s decree and its domineering manner, thousands of women defiantly poured into the streets of Tehran on March 8, 1979 chanting slogans such as “In the dawn of freedom, there is an absence of freedom” and “We didn’t make a revolution to go backwards.” This first resistance movement against the Iranian Islamic theocracy, as well as the international movement in solidarity with secular Iranian women, is documented in detail and analyzed in depth by Mahnaz Matin and Nasser Mohajer in a two-volume book, just published by Noghteh Books.

Screening of “Forced Confessions”, Hadi Ghaemi, Apr 7, 2013

Hadi Ghaemi is an internationally recognized expert on Iran and human rights. In 2008, together with international human rights activists in the Netherlands, he founded the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), formerly the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. CHRI has since become a leading organization documenting human rights violations in Iran and building international coalitions to support human rights.

Previously, Ghaemi worked with Human Rights Watch, joining the organization in 2004 as the Iran and United Arab Emirates researcher. His work at Human Rights Watch focused international attention on the plight of migrant workers in Dubai, as well as the repression of civil society in Iran. After the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, he was a member of the first UN-commissioned human rights fact-finding mission to Afghanistan. Between 2001 and 2004, he worked with NGOs focusing on Afghanistan and Iraq.

Born in Iran, Ghaemi came to the United States in 1983 as a student and received his doctorate in physics from Boston University in 1994. He was a professor of physics at City University of New York until 2000. His groundbreaking research in nanophysics has been published in prestigious scientific journals such as Nature, and he holds four patents in this field.