All posts tagged: Iranian

For one Iranian family and their church, Trump’s refugee freeze leaves son in exile

For one Iranian family and their church, Trump’s refugee freeze leaves son in exile

Published by skeptic

(RNS) — On a recent night, a mother in California found herself lying awake at 3:00 a.m., her mind racing. Unable to sleep, she tossed and turned for the next three hours, anxiously ruminating on the same question that has haunted her for years. “All the time, I just think about it: How can I help my son?” she told Religion News Service in a recent interview. “I cannot think about anything else.” It’s a personal agony that has long plagued Ava — which is not her real name, as she requested anonymity to be able to speak freely about her story — who is a refugee from Iran living in the U.S. While much of her family has resettled here, her eldest adult son remains in exile in Indonesia. A local church has sponsored his entry into the U.S., but he, like virtually all refugees seeking entry into the country, is currently in limbo after President Donald Trump’s decision to essentially freeze the U.S. refugee program entirely. That includes people fleeing religious persecution. In …

An Israeli Take on a Modern Iranian Classic

An Israeli Take on a Modern Iranian Classic

Published by José

The past few years may well be remembered as the nadir of Iranian-Israeli relations, and the first occasion when the two countries attacked each other directly. But they were also a golden period for Iranian-Israeli collaboration in cinema. In 2023, Tatami was the first-ever film to be co-directed by an Israeli (Guy Nattiv) and an Iranian (Zar Amir). And in 2024 came Reading Lolita in Tehran, directed by Eran Riklis, who is Israeli, and adapted from a book by an Iranian author, with an almost entirely Iranian cast. The film premiered at the Rome Film Fest last year and is now starting to tour the United States. Anyone old enough to remember cultural life at the beginning of this century will know the book. Azar Nafisi’s memoir came out in 2003, spent 36 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, and quickly developed a cult following. A reviewer for The Nation confessed to missing a dental appointment, a business lunch, and a deadline just because she couldn’t put the book aside. Literary scholars—Nafisi is …

NSS calls for release of Iranian protestor Ahoo Daryaei

NSS calls for release of Iranian protestor Ahoo Daryaei

Published by skeptic

The National Secular Society has urged the UK Government to call on Iranian authorities to release a woman detained after protesting Iran’s hijab laws. The NSS wrote to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) this week to raise the case of Ahoo Daryaei, a university student who was violently arrested after protesting against compulsory veiling at the Islamic Azad University in Tehran. According to Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, Daryaei was harassed by the university’s ‘morality police’ over her ‘improper’ hijab. Footage posted online shows Daryaei subsequently walking outside the university whilst stripped to her underwear as a protest against the ‘morality police’. Alinejad posted on X: “She turned her body into a protest, stripping to her underwear and marching through campus—defying a regime that constantly controls women’s bodies. “Her act is a powerful reminder of Iranian women’s fight for freedom”. Hijab has been compulsory for women since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Protests against the hijab laws have been met with brutal resistance from the Islamic Republic. In 2022, 23 year old Mahsa …

OpenAI allegedly caught an ‘Iranian Influence Operation’ using ChatGPT

OpenAI allegedly caught an ‘Iranian Influence Operation’ using ChatGPT

Published by skeptic

OpenAI, the company that brought us ChatGPT, said on Friday that it discovered and banned “accounts linked to an Iranian influence operation.” The accounts were allegedly using ChatGPT to “generate content focused on multiple topics, including the U.S. presidential campaign,” OpenAI said in a statement. The group is known as Storm-2035 which, according to Axios, has a reputation for attempting to influence elections by creating fake news websites and sharing them on social media. The OpenAI statement said the group used ChatGPT to “generate content focused on a number of topics — including commentary on candidates on both sides in the U.S. presidential election – which it then shared via social media accounts and websites.” It generated content about both major party presidential candidates — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump — along with Israel’s invasion of Gaza, Spanish and English-language discussions about the rights of Latinx communities in the U.S., Venezuelan politics, and Scottish independence. Storm-2035 also created some fashion and beauty content which, OpenAI suspects, is an attempt to “appear …

Is Iranian military support for Russia’s war in Ukraine ‘at a new level’? | Russia-Ukraine war News

Is Iranian military support for Russia’s war in Ukraine ‘at a new level’? | Russia-Ukraine war News

Published by Sam

Kyiv, Ukraine – A Russian man who filmed a heavy drone that crashed in a field outside the western Russian village of Shirinka was jubilant. In a video posted online on May 26, the unidentified man said the white drone belonged to Ukraine and carried “missiles”. German military analyst Julian Roepke said the drone was a malfunctioned heavy, Iranian-made Mohajer-6 drone. “Iranian arms support for Russia at a new level,” he posted on X. The crash landing revealed an unpleasant surprise for Ukraine. The alleged “missiles” attached to the crashed drone were high-precision aerial bombs that were supposed to be dropped on the northern Ukrainian region of Sumy, analyst Roepke said. Tehran supplies them to Moscow – along with cheaper, slower Shahed “kamikaze” drones, artillery shells and, reportedly, ballistic missiles. Observers say they are sent in return for the Kremlin’s international backing and far more advanced Russian weaponry that can shield Iran from potential Israeli and United States attacks. Since 2022, Shaheds have become “ersatz cruise missiles” that allow Moscow to launch massive, frequent assaults on …

Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, dead in helicopter crash – OpentheWord.org

Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, dead in helicopter crash – OpentheWord.org

Published by skeptic

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi (C) with Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2022 Credit: Kremlin.ru, Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0 Ebrahim Raisi, the President of Iran, is dead. He died after his helicopter crashed in a mountainous region of the country on Sunday. As news leaked out, Iranians celebrated the death of the hardliner, who is referred to as the ‘Butcher of Tehran’ for his slaughter of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 when he served as the country’s attorney general. Since his election as President in 2021, he has brutally oppressed the citizens of that country and particularly Christians. Raisi considered himself an Islamic cleric and wore a black turban because his family is said to be a direct descendant of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. Many believe he was slated to be the next supreme Leader of Iran, replacing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who is 86. Despite the President and Iranian legislature being determined through elections, the Supreme Leader is the de facto leader of Iran, as he has the ultimate …

US flags environmental risks from illicit transfers of Iranian oil off Malaysia, report says

US flags environmental risks from illicit transfers of Iranian oil off Malaysia, report says

Published by Sam

KUALA LUMPUR: A US treasury official warned of environmental risks from illicit transfers of Iranian oil off Malaysia, news portal Malaysiakini reported on Thursday (May 9), as the United States narrows its focus on financing for militant groups routed through Southeast Asia. The United States sees Iran’s capacity to move its oil as being reliant on service providers based in Malaysia, a senior US treasury official said this week. The official also said the United States was attempting to prevent Malaysia from becoming a jurisdiction where the Palestinian militant group Hamas could raise and transfer funds. Brian Nelson, the US Treasury undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said one of the main ways Iran raised money was through the sale of illicit oil to buyers in East Asia, Malaysiakini reported. “Many of these shipments traverse the waters around Malaysia and are loaded onto vessels of questionable legitimacy that may also pose major environmental and safety risks,” he was reported as saying. Nelson expressed concern for any parties providing “ship-to-ship” transfers of illicit oil as such …

Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof sentenced to eight years in prison and flogging | World cinema

Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof sentenced to eight years in prison and flogging | World cinema

Published by skeptic

The Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has been sentenced to eight years in prison, flogging, a fine and the confiscation of property, his lawyer has confirmed. Writing on X, Babak Paknia, a human rights lawyer representing Rasoulof, said that the judgment was confirmed in a court of appeal and the case had now been sent for enforcement. He continued by saying the chief reasons given for the punishment were Rasoulof’s public statements, as well as his continued involvement in making films and documentaries which the court described as “examples of collusion with the intention of committing a crime against the country’s security”. Rasoulof, 52, is one of Iran’s leading directors, whose latest film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, is due to premiere at the Cannes film festival next week. Since its inclusion was announced last month, the director and the festival had come under considerable pressure from Iranian authorities to pull the film from competition. Producers on the film reported harassment by the state police, Paknia has previously reported on X, and actors were summoned …

‘Nightmares about Rwanda’: Iranian asylum seeker facing deportation from UK | Immigration and asylum

‘Nightmares about Rwanda’: Iranian asylum seeker facing deportation from UK | Immigration and asylum

Published by skeptic

Roozbeh*, 34, is a civil engineer from Iran. He fled his country fearing for his life after the government found out he had converted from Islam to Christianity. He arrived in the UK in December 2022, has received a notice of intent to be sent to Rwanda and fears that he could be arrested and detained at any moment. “When I crossed the border from Iran into Turkey I stepped into the unknown. I had never left my country before and I knew the journey was going to be very dangerous. I was put into lorry after lorry and did not know what countries I passed through. “The smugglers spoke to us in English and said we had to do whatever they told us to do. I think they were speaking Turkish and Kurdish [to each other]. They were really aggressive. “The journey to France took about 21 days but it was hard to know the difference between day and night in the lorries and it felt like 200 days. “The smugglers told us to …