Word: iranian
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...Iran DISSIDENTS ON TRIAL Days before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in for a second term on Aug. 5, Iran held a mass trial of more than 100 people (above), including a former Vice President and a Newsweek reporter, charging them with rioting, conspiring with foreign powers and trying to foment a revolution after the nation's June elections. Iran claims that many defendants admitted guilt, but critics say that the confessions were forced and that the trial is an attempt to quash the inevitable protests surrounding Ahmadinejad's swearing...
...wearing the gauziest of headscarves and a decidedly immodest pair of Nike Capri pants. The fabric covering my ears and neck stoked my body temperature unbearably, and the pleasurable strain of running gave way to acute discomfort. "How am I going to stay fit here?" I wailed to my Iranian girlfriends, experts in the dilemma of balancing exercise with Islamic modesty codes. They offered me a rich store of advice, from headscarves with ear slits to calibrating outdoor exercise with the seasons to where to find women-only gyms...
...bandanna over your hair instead of a proper veil). During snowy Tehran winters, I pushed myself to go skiing, since modesty ceases to be an issue when you're bundled in a ski suit and hat. I did more yoga than I was accustomed to, since the Iranian middle class is obsessed with yoga and classes are more ubiquitous than mosques in many neighborhoods. Perhaps my cardiovascular endurance plunged with all the varied exercise, but hey, I was cross-training out of the clutches of the morality police, and pretty comfortable. (See pictures of Islam's soft revolution...
...seemingly moderate in-law as his Vice President last month, in defiance of the Supreme Leader, the Revolutionary Guards quickly put him in his place, warning that his political future was "dependent on his acceptance of velayat-e faqih [or rule by the clergy, the founding tenet of the Iranian theocracy and the chief pillar of the Supreme Leader's power]." Some members of the opposition, already worried that the IRGC is writing the script current events, wonder if the Guards did not pre-plan the entire crackdown. They point out that four days before the presidential election, the Guards...
...large role in orchestrating the crackdown on political dissidents and protesters following the disputed presidential election. Its political influence within the regime has always far exceeded the actual army's, and it has increased exponentially since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected to office in 2005. But the speculation among Iranian opposition sources is that, these days, the IRGC's powerful patron - whose second term officially began last week - has now become its puppet, falling under the influence of a gang of security chiefs (the so-called New Right) that harbor schemes to further radicalize the regime or topple...