Rick Steves, host of a travel show visited Iran. I found he reports negative and positive part of Iran in his visit. It is a fair and unbiased report.
Here what he has to say about Iran:
This documentary studies Iranian government relationship with the west after 9/11 on issues like Afghanistan and Iraq war and also it studies nuclear confrontation issue.
This nicely put together documentary it goes deep and speak with authorities who were in charge back then in Iran, Europe and the US.
After the reformists' victory in May 1997, it did seem as though a new era in bilateral relations might begin. "When Khatami attended the UN General Assembly in 2001, which had been designated as the year of the dialogue of civilizations," Nabavi, a reformist parliamentarian at the time, explained in an interview earlier this year, "conditions were more favorable for talks between the two countries" than they are today. But after the UN meeting, Clinton reportedly waited outside the men's room to shake Khatami's hand but gave up when Khatami lingered inside. Fearing that the reformists would get credit for reestablishing ties with the United States (a move that would have been widely popular inside Iran), Khamenei had opposed the meeting.
John Austin wrote a good piece titled "Iran's revolution heads into uncharted waters" on ABC News. He painted society in Tehran very well in his written article. It is a good read and I like it how it ended:
In Tehran, taxi drivers wrap their woollen scarfs tighter against the sub-zero chill, parents are treating their children to a night out at Super Star, reporters on the late shift in the national newsroom down the road try to second guess their political and spiritual overlords. Inside the hotel, the young lobby pianist segues from 'Lara's Theme' to 'Strangers in the Night'. For the new US President a world away puzzling over what to do with his country's traditional foe, and for his Iranian rival planning his own risky path, their future may well lie somewhere between sneaking some hand-holding under the table and an impossible love affair bound to end in tears.
She was Miss Iran in 1976. She says Iran was a heaven and revolution came as a shock. The Tehran that beauty Jewish queen grew up is not the one on the one today is.
Listen to her story on NPR
Some people participate in rally to mark anniversary of the revolution in Iran every year but there is reason behind of it, besides that small percentage of people are there to show off their support but most people attend because first there is no entertainment in Iran and second for following reasons:
1. Poverty: poverty makes people to become peddlers.
Well, there is nothing to celebrate, I mean besides the fact that economy is in terrible situation and hardship that people go through, celebration for what?! Wait a minute, probably for that domestically (are you kidding me?!) made satellite into orbit. Just I am wondering if we are capable of making satellite, why aren't we capable of makings ovens? Yeah I am talking about kitchen ovens or even just very simple mechanical stuff. Take cars that assembled in Iranian manufacture, most of them are defected at the time that you get from manufacture. It is very hard to believe that satellite is made in Iran.
There is no bright future in the horizon with what Islamic republic has done and unfortunately continues to do so. They drag people to death holes and seem ayatollahs nuclear ambitions are way too valuable than what people want, just I hope it doesn’t inflame Iran in a nuclear war.
An Iranian blogger, Liberal Iranian wrote an interesting piece about 30th anniversary:
I don't mark this 30th anniversary of the 1979 revolution in any particular way except for a deep sigh. Having lived outside Iran for a while, I am relieved not to be bombarded by a constant stream of deafening propaganda on TV, radio, work, school and elsewhere in the public.
The sigh then is one of relief as well as grief. Grief for those who perished in the years leading to the revolution. For those whose idealistic hopes were dashed by the Islamic Republic, including the ones of those who actually supported it back then.
For those who were executed, jailed or forced into exile by the Islamic Republic since its inception. And for those whose lives in Iran today consist mostly of a seemingly futile struggle to lead what is considered a basic, normal life in the free world.
I just hope that the unrealistic world views and the intellectual clutter 30-some years ago that led to all of this now, and the yoke of theocracy, go away soon and my countrymen can one day live freely.
I am sure many Iranians do share same thoughts.
This is an incredible story of crash-landed flight into Hudson River. A great survival story. If you got sometime watch these videos:
I Was Sure I Could Do It
Saving 155 Lives
An Emotional Reunion
We firmly believe that every Iranian, “without distinction of any kind, such as, race, color, sex, language, religion, politics or other opinions,” and also without regard to ethnic background, “social origin, property, birth or other status,” is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, from the very inception of the Baha’i Faith, the followers of this religion in Iran have been deprived of many provisions of human rights solely on account of their religious convictions.And I am really ashamed that in my country still Baha'is deprived from the very basic rights like higher education, they are systematically oppressed, discriminated and harassed and unfortunately it is escalated during past 30 years.
Infamous Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan known as Hoder is in detention in Iran. He started blogging as dissident but he end up praising Islamic republic of Iran since 2006. He believed that Iranian judiciary system is a fair system; he believed in supreme leader of Iran and he praised ayatollah’s nuclear ambitions. I was wondering, like many other bloggers, how did he find fairness in Islamic Iran’s judiciary?! But he didn’t care for what we said and asked; he was advocating for them.
He moved back to Tehran last year and arrested on charge of insulting religious figures on November 2008. Now Iranian bloggers are reluctant to write about and/or support him after he has bashed Iranian human rights activists and Iranian dissidents and called them spy, praised Islamic Iran on detention of dissidents, intellectuals and prisoners of conscience, and last but not least his hostile attitude towards his opposition.
I disagree with him on too many occasions or I rather say it would be rare if I and he would find any common ground but at the same time, I believe freedom of expression is the fundamental right of every individual and we should keep it sacred as the right of everyone of us, even our opponent.
I urge Islamic Iran to release Mr. Derakhshan, other bloggers and prisoners of conscience immediately and I ask Iranian Judiciary to practice international human rights law and put it in priority than Islamic law.
I am not sure how it’s gonna affect human rights situation in Iran but if it opens up Islamic Iran to the world and pushes it to commitment to international laws and treaties then I am sure it will have significant affect on every aspect of Iranian lives but at the same time, there is a possibility that a grand bargain would change Islamic Iran’s human rights situation to something worse, like Saudi Arabia which in fact by looking back to Islamic Iran’s behavior during past 30 years.
I guess a grand bargain with Islamic Iran can convert "hostile Iran" to ally for the US and at the best, Islamic Iran will behave like Shah Regime towards people.
In mark of 30th anniversary of Islamic revolution in Iran, people still look back, before 1979 and daydream about those days. Would you say it is wishful dreaming? Yeah, it is but this is byproduct of totalitarian regime on society. They have long lost their very basic freedom like desired outfit, their dignity and credibility in the international scene and last but not least their hope; so wouldn’t be nice to make fantasy out of old days when you ran out of options?
Balatarin.com website which is basically a dig like Persian language content sharing website that people can share links finally got hacked.
Balatarin.com has blocked by Iranian authorities long time ago in Iran because people would publish their links and could get more audience for their blogs and in some cases people have exposed and shared information about injustice, hypocrite officials, their disdain with regime and ayatollahs through this website like former Iranian police commander who was with couple of prostitutes while he enforced very strict moral crackdowns specially on women, sex scandal in university by ranking school official, sex scandal by an ayatollah and so on.
I forgot to mention that you could find links from Iranian atheists, agnostics, humanists, gays, lesbians and any concept that’s banned, even has death penalty and people couldn't even imagine to discuss them publicly in society, they could find them on the Balatarin.com by Iranian blogosphere community. Although I should mention that people wouldn't dare to unveil their identity because torture and prison would be their least problem and death penalty the last one.
Balatarin.com was the most popular website among Iranians. It reserved top of the chart of ranking websites like Alexa after getting popularity and although it was blocked and harder to reach inside of Iran but people always find ways to get around filtering machines and find their interesting news and blogs from Balatarin.com.
I found last message of Balatarin.com management team in twitter:
Our domains have been hacked by people who don't like what we do. We are working on it. Stay tuned.Islamic Iran couldn’t take it anymore with everyday content against regime, Islamic and religious ideology; they wanted to take this website down and they did it. The current page on the Balatarin.com has no sign of active content sharing website that Iranian bloggers, news readers and in fact any Iranians who wanted to grasp on some fresh news from Iran, would get together to share their thoughts.
Oh no, don't get me wrong. It’s not a vulgar post or anything close to that. Ayatollahs in Iran have had hope to export Islam and their Islamic revolution to the world.
It seems a group of Cardiff city soccer team fans' adopted some moves from Ayatollahs and evolved it to something totally different. You're gonna love it.
Stories like this one would push you think again how religious people convince people to do such barbarity?
If god is god and if Allah is god too and none is better than the other because they all are god, so why would subscriber to a god would torture people who converts to another god? Or even call them apostate and execute them? Why?!
According to Islamic school teachings, gods are not same and Allah is a better god or let me put it this way; it is last trend god in gods fashion show which ended since Muhammad died.
Iranian regime tries very hard to portray how Islamic Iran and its supreme leader have won hearts and minds of Arabs and specially among Palestinians and Lebanese, but they hide the hard reality of hate that exists against Islamic Iran’s activity in these two countries.
In first millisecond of following video clip you can see how some Lebanese are trampling picture of supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei. I am sure if people in Iran wouldn’t get persecuted; mostly they would the same with of these ayatollahs and their photos, indeed.
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