Termeh Mandegar
TEHRAN—The June 12, 2009, election in Iran allowed students to participate in another social and political event and show their presence. Twelve years earlier, students had been able to persuade the masses to elect the anti-establishment candidate, the reformist Mohammad Khatami. But the students soon became disenfranchised after Khatami failed to meet their demands, and after the bloody events of the summer of 1999, during which student dormitories were attacked by security forces. This alienation and disenfranchisement lead to the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. During his presidency, pressure on students has increased dramatically. The authorities have limited any student behavior seen as criticism of the government to they point that they even shut down student association elections, which had been held every year. more»
Lili Mansouri
BERLIN—The election on June 12 will always be remembered in Iran as the day of a coup d’état to alter Iran’s politics, but it should also be remembered as coup for women. Four years earlier, on June 12, 2005, thousands of people who had participated in a demonstration asking for the elimination of all discrimination against women. That year, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was running for president for the first time. He was the only candidate who did not have any campaign slogans regarding women and their affairs. Once he took office, it became apparent that he did not have any plans for women either. more»
Kazem Alamdari
LOS ANGELES—In the past thirty years, the power structure of the Islamic Republic of Iran has moved from populism to clientelism, and now to militarism. The triangle of power that includes Supreme Leader Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is much more fragile as opposed to the previous power structures. Why? more»
Keyhan Kasravi
BERLIN—A series of events in recent weeks have made many political commentators conclude that Iran’s pro-democracy movement is becoming radicalized. The death of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri was the first event in this series. Ayatollah Montazeri was known as the spiritual leader of the Green Movement. He was a prominent figure during the early years of the revolution but was later sidelined because of his protests over the mass executions of political dissidents in Iran in the 1980s. In the 1990s, he became a serious critic of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader. more»
Tara Mahtafar
WASHINGTON—The unprecedented violence in Iran seen in the December 27 Ashura protests—which was committed by the regime and the opposition—showcased the emboldened opposition movement’s capacity for civil disobedience as well as a decline in both the psychological and physical effectiveness of the regime’s repressive security forces. more»