Word: pahlavi
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...after day they marched, tens of thousands strong, defiant chanting demonstrators surging through the streets of Tehran, a capital unaccustomed to the shouts and echoes of dissent. The subject of their protest was the policies of Iran's supreme ruler, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Some carried signs demanding his ouster. Others called for a return of long denied civil and political liberties and the enforcement of Islamic laws. A few even demanded the legalization of the Tudeh, Iran's outlawed Communist party. The crowd, at times numbering more than 100,000, was a colorful, sometimes incongruous cross section of Iranian...
...there was something faintly incongruous about Chinese Chairman Hua Kuofeng's state visit to the imperial court of Iran last week, neither the guest nor his host, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, seemed to notice it. Hua did ask, in advance, that he be driven into town from the airport in an automobile instead of the horse-drawn golden carriage in which the Shah normally transports his most honored guests. But otherwise the visit passed uneventfully, with talks about cultural exchanges and expanded trade. Though the subject was not announced, the two leaders undoubtedly discussed something else that concerns them...
...Shah's recently restored imperial calendar would be scrapped and replaced by the old Islamic calendar that the Muslim religious leaders had been demanding.* The government further announced that the country's eight big gambling casinos, including the four owned by the Shah's charitable Pahlavi Foundation, would be shut down. The post of Minister of State for Women's Affairs was abolished to appease the mullahs, who claimed that liberalization policies in women's rights were undermining the sanctity of the Islamic household. Half a dozen religious leaders who had been jailed for leading...
...seemed that Iran's uncertain advance into the 20th century had stumbled again, and that the nation had been thrust back into the dark Islamic puritanism of the 18th century. Since the holy month of Ramadan began Aug. 5, the conflict between Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and an unlikely coalition of left-wing extremists and conservative Muslims who oppose his modest modernization campaign had reached new zeniths of terror. Before arsonists set fire to the Rex cinema in Abadan, killing 377, Iran had been rocked by sectarian violence that resulted in at least 16 other deaths. Outraged by Western-style...
After 25 years of autocratic and often oppressive rule, during which he sought to make his feudal nation a modern society, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi began taking tentative steps toward political liberalization in 1976. He reined in Iran's notorious security police agency, SAVAK, eased censorship, and encouraged more open political debate. The reforms stilled some criticism by the country's intellectuals and student dissidents. But the changes also gave new life to opponents of the regime who now pose one of the gravest threats to the Shah's rule in the past 15 years. This year...