Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
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Interview with Roxana Saberi on the Elections in Iran
''The Syrian Situation Is Sending a Message to the Iranians''
The Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi was sentenced to an eight-year prison term on bogus espionage charges in Iran in 2009. She was released following the intervention of US president Barack Obama. Saberi does not believe that the presidential elections in Iran on 14 June will bring major political changes. An interview by Tobias Köberlein
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Interview with LGBT Rights Activist Arsham Parsi
''Rights are never given; we have to fight for them''
Arsham Parsi is an Iranian LGBT human rights activist who lives in exile in Canada. In this interview with Ceyda Nurtsch, he speaks about the situation for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals (LGBTs) in Iran and his work to support LGBT refugees who flee the country for the West and explains why he is so optimistic about it all
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Interview with Hossein Mousavian
''Iran Will Not Negotiate under Threat''
Seyed Hossein Mousavian, spokesman for the former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani and once the Iranian ambassador to Germany, sees a realistic chance for a resolution of the nuclear crisis despite the escalation of the conflict. Direct talks with the USA are both possible and necessary, says the former diplomat. An interview by Silke Mertins
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Iran's Electoral Strategy
All Options off the Table?
Negotiations over Iran's nuclear program have again hit a wall, but the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appears unconcerned. Indeed, Khamenei seems convinced that neither the United States nor Israel will attack its nuclear facilities – at least not before the US presidential election in November. By Mehdi Khalaji
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Iranian Journalists under Pressure
Arrest or Exile
In the run-up to the Iranian parliamentary elections, the regime in Tehran is showing signs of nervousness. More journalists are being arrested as the repression of civil society continues. Marcus Michaelsen reports
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Interview with Ali Granmayeh about Iran and the ''Arabellions''
Yearning for Lost Freedoms
In 2009, well before the Arab Spring began, Iranians rose up against their regime in what became known as the Green Revolution. Their uprising failed. So how do they and the Iranian regime feel about the wave of uprisings that have swept the Arab world this year? Mona Sarkis met Ali Granmayeh, a former Iranian diplomat, to find out
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Iran's Controversial Nuclear Programme
Tehran's Visions versus Nuclear Realities
Iran's nuclear programme has been a focus of international concern for over a decade now. From the very start, more has been at issue here than mere technical details or international law as it applies to the programme. Playing the main role instead are ideological positions and geo-strategic interests. An analysis by Walter Posch
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Saudi Arabia's Flawed Iraq Strategy
The Iranian Wolf at the Kingdom's Door
The Saudis fear that the departure of US troops from Iraq would represent a sweeping victory for Iran, which has no military presence in Iraq, but is the strongest player there. But, says Mai Yamani in her commentary, this defeat is partly self-inflicted
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Iran's Green Movement Two Years after the Protests
Simmering beneath the Surface
While Iran's revolutionary leader Ali Khamenei reinterpreted the toppling of the Mubarak regime as an Islamic rebellion, the protagonists in the Green Movement of 2009 looked to Cairo in frustration. Some of them may well have asked themselves the question: Why was there no Tahrir Square phenomenon in Tehran? By Marian Brehmer
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Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel's ''The People Reloaded''
The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran's Future
With their anthology on Iran's Green Movement, Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel provide an intellectual and political road map to the country's largest political protest since the 1979 revolution. Ramin Jahanbegloo introduces "The People Reloaded"