Harry's Place

Remember the spontaneous anti-regime protests that sprung up throughout Iran in late December and early January?
It’s time to pay attention again.
First time ever since the Islamic Revolution that protesters take over Fri Prayers sermon, the bedrock of regime support!Does the world appreciate whats happening in Iran? pic.twitter.com/QoKLh0ghHg
— Potkin Azarmehr (@potkazar) March 16, 2018

#Steel workers on [...]

An important point that is too often neglected: There are women in Iran and elsewhere who choose to wear the hijab but firmly (and bravely) insist that other women should not be forced to do so.
These photos show many Iranian women understand the fight against forced hijab is not about whether the hijab is good [...]

Many people think politicians are sleazy liars.
Jeremy Corbyn would like you to believe that he is different. So would his followers.
Making The Case For Iran
The rest of us are going to take some convincing, to say the least. All the more so, Mr Corbyn, after we saw you on TV earlier today with [...]

I know many Harry’s Place commenters have reacted angrily to The New York Times’s coverage of the Iranian protests.
But as the uprising continues into its second week, and as the regime tries to crack down by arresting and attacking protesters and cutting off their means of communication, I found a recent Times piece by Amir [...]

In his piece in today’s Guardian Simon Tisdall gives no space to the various concerns voiced by protesters across Iran. The article is titled:
Iran’s enemies would be wise not to wish for regime change
and its first sentence reads:
Like birds of prey circling high in the desert sky, Iran’s many foes and rivals are watching the street [...]

Conservative writer Bill Kristol has a wise take on how those of us outside Iran should be reacting to the current uprising against the corrupt and oppressive regime of the Islamic Republic.
Here's a crazy idea: The foreign policy/Middle East/Iran experts who are taking shots at each other for alleged past Iran policy mistakes might spend [...]

Protesters in Tehran tear down a poster of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
پاره کردن عکس رهبر جمهوری اسلامی به دست معترضان در #تهران#تجمع‌های_اعتراضی pic.twitter.com/eD9MqAeOKj
— RadioFarda راديوفردا (@RadioFarda_) December 30, 2017

Surely much more to come.
Update:
Anti-government protest in Khoramabad: "We don't want an Islamic republic." #Iranprotests https://t.co/OjW2lMvaTa
— Golnaz Esfandiari (@GEsfandiari) December 30, 2017

Further update: Check out #Iranprotests [...]

It’s not a surprise, but it’s good news that after two-and-a-half years of lies and coverups (some of which we documented here), the truth has finally come out.
A team of forensic analysts has determined that Alberto Nisman, the special prosecutor who claimed that the president of Argentina [Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner] covered up Iran’s role [...]

At Tabriz University in Iran, an awe-inspiring student stood on a stage with an official of the powerful and brutal Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and denounced him for killing and torturing Iranians and for supporting the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

I can only hope he somehow manages to stay safe.
And yes, I’ll say [...]

This is a cross-post by Potkin Azarmehr
When the US female chess champion, Nazi Paikidze-Barnes, and some of the world’s other top female chess players announced last week, they will boycott the next world chess championships in Iran, because they have been told they are expected to wear the compulsory headscarves in Iran; it was a truly [...]