Iranian Madness

Am I the only one who has witnessed a milder, more open attitude in Iran’s regime these days? It feels as though there has been an implicit truce, and relationship between the different stakeholders in the Islamic Republic are thawing.
There have been several examples that point towards this direction, some of them truly remarkable, [...]

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Il settimanale Panorama ha pubblicato un’interessante intervista a Pietro Masturzo, vincitore del World Press Photo Award 2009.
Che emozione che dev’essere stata vivere quelle notti insieme al popolo iraniano!

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Come avevo già scritto in inglese, il premio della World Press per la miglior foto del 2009 è stato assegnato a un giovane fotografo italiano, Pietro Masturzo. E mi fa ovviamente piacere che il soggetto sia iraniano, e precisamente un tetto di una casa di Teheran nei giorni immediatamente successivi alle elezioni del giugno 2009.
Un’interessante [...]

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It’s great to see an Italian photographer, Pietro Masturzo, win the World Press Photo of the year award for 2009 with a picture on Iran.
The black and white photo, showed below, depicts women shouting slogans against the regime from the rooftop of a house in Tehran. This mode of protesting is reminiscent of the 1979 [...]

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It’s interesting to see the ups and downs of the seemingly never-ending relationship between Iran and Italy.
Not many people know that Italy owns the largest private piece of land in Tehran (and probably in the whole Iran): the ambassador’s residence in Farmanieh, with its flourishing garden of rare trees and its Qajar-style buildings, is [...]

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Non manca la fantasia, in Iran: prima il quotidiano Emrooz, vicino al sindaco di Teheran Mohamed Bagher Ghalibaf, si inventa un logo che ricorda una ballerina stilizzata.
E poi, ovviamente, i bacchettoni conservatori fanno il loro dovere.
L’Iran è bello anche per questo: la battaglia si gioca su molti fronti, alcuni che fanno ridere (amaramente).

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It appears that the people of Iran are starting to have enough of the government and its continuous suppression of the largely peaceful protests that keep gathering a growing number of people in the streets of Tehran.
The institutions take these seriously, so much that they have now revived previous plans to relocate the capital [...]

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In spite of silence from the main media, it’s quite clear that the Iranians (especially the students) haven’t given up protesting.
The most recent videos depicting Azad university protests can be seen here. Protests keep being reported every now and then (such as in this article), but the restrictions on foreign media reporting mean we [...]

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The international media are (understandably) putting less emphasis on the Iranian situation, but nonetheless protests continue.
A few recent events:
1) On 6 August, green activists (supporters of Mirhossein Mousavi) blocked the Modarres Highway (it seems to be the Mirdamad overpass, but I cannot be sure from the pics)
2) Iranians keep shouting “Allah-o-akbar” (God is great) [...]

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I just stumbled into a great article that contains the testimony of a British-Greek journalist, Iason Athanasiadis, who got to spend some time in the dreaded Evin prison, of which most of the political dissidents have been a guest at some point in time.
His recounts of blindfolded interrogations, slaps and dark rooms without a bed [...]

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