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Iran

Article

Language and rights in Iranian Queer community

Benyamin Farnam is a documentary filmmaker and photographer from Iran, with human rights and LGBT perspectives as main topics. For PEN/Opp Farnam gives an analysis of the situation for LGBT...

Text: Benyamin Farnam January 07 2018
Poetry

Immortality

Yasaman R. Choube was born in Iran and now lives in exile. For PEN/Opp she has written a moving story about love, oppression and loss.

Text: Yasaman R. Choube December 18 2017
Poetry

Poems in exile

Iranian poet, LGBT and human rights activist Elham Malekpoor has published several collections of poetry, most of which have been censored in Iran. She particularly deals with child labour and queer...

Text: Elham Malekpoor December 16 2014
Fiction

Before the lunar eclipse

Iran is a country full of paradoxes. While the state has enacted some of the strictest laws in the world when it comes to same-sex relationships, sex change for homosexuals has become a thriving...

Text: Ramesh Safavi December 16 2014
Fiction

To write and to live in the shadow

The first blog was started in Iran in the beginning of 2001. Since then, the blog culture within the country has grown and there are over 70,000 blogs by Iranians, both inside and outside the country...

Text: Marzieh Rasouli May 06 2014
Article

The Mullahs’ inroads into social media

Internet freedom is highly restricted in Iran. Low speed connections, blocked sites and internet blackouts are just a couple of examples of how the government attempts to strangle internet. An...

Text: Anonymous May 06 2014
Fiction

Iran: The day we pack our bags

For many years, author Roya Zarrin held a popular yoga class in her hometown in Iran. But since it was also a place where forbidden literature could be discussed fairly openly, it attracted the...

Text: Roya Zarrin October 24 2013
Article

What about democracy in Iran?

Sanctions against Iran tighten with every year that passes—all in an effort to force the regime to account for its nuclear program. How do the sanctions affect the Iranian people and their fight for...

Text: Trita Parsi June 10 2013
Fiction

Drunkenness

Author Saeed Tabatabaee was one year old when the Islamic Revolution took place. He belongs to the generation of young people who has grown up in the regime's big brother society—always guarded...

Text: Saeed Tabatabaee June 10 2013
Interview

Tehran girls just want to have fun

Over 30 years have passed since Iran's Islamic revolution. An entire generation of young women has grown up without knowing any other society than the one created by the conservative mullahs—a society...

Text: Mojgan Ayyari June 10 2013
Article

“Iran's economy is on the road to collapse”

Inflation, rising unemployment and an irresponsible economic policy seems to be the Ahmadinejad administration's political legacy. The next president will face severe challenges, writes financial...

Text: Sara Damavandan June 10 2013
Poetry

The songs will disappear one by one

Alireza Behnam, born in 1973 in Tehran, is one of the most influential young poets in Iran right now. Since 1991, he has published four collections of poems and translated a number of books into...

Text: Alireza Behnam June 10 2013

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