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Saman – formerly Farzaneh – Arastu takes male role in Anahita a year after playing a woman in another film
She earned her acting credentials playing female characters in a host of hit films and television dramas. Now one of Iran’s best-known screen actors has ditched her previous persona to embark on a new career playing male roles.
But Saman – formerly Farzaneh – Arastu’s gender transformation has little to do with dramatic talents. Instead she has turned into a he by becoming the first known Iranian actor to undergo a sex change operation.
Following a career as a female actor, Arastu, 42, has already played one role as a man after taking advantage of surprisingly liberal laws that make…
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Prenuptial training for young people aims to tackle country’s rising divorce rates
There was a time when Iranian women seeking husbands prioritised job status and financial security – not to mention love – at the top of their list of needs.
Now potential suitors face the prospect of having to fulfil a daunting new requirement before asking for a bride’s hand – having the right government certificate.
Acquiring the appropriate official qualifications before popping the question is part of a plan for prenuptial training courses approved by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with the aim of reversing declining Iranian marriage rates and rising divorce statistics.
From next week,…
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Thirty-one years ago this week, Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran after 15 years in exile. The anniversary is usually marked by triumphant rallies. Not this time: protesters are planning mass demonstrations against a regime they say has betrayed Islamic ideals.
For three decades, the image of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini arriving on Iranian soil to a tumultuous homecoming after 15 years in exile has been a centrepiece of Iran’s revolutionary iconography.
It is an event best captured in a famous picture of the late spiritual leader being gently led down the steps of an Air France jet by a man dressed as a pilot or an air steward. The picture embodies the heady mixture of pride,…
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New site aimed at revolutionising shopping is approved by internet-hostile regime
The internet has long been viewed with suspicion by Iran’s Islamic regime: a drive to stifle dissent has seen online speeds slowed to a crawl, websites hacked and filtered, email accounts monitored and a special police force formed to detect internet “crime”. But amid a technophobia that has intensified in the face of continuing opposition protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election, officials have now found one cyberspace activity they approve of: e-shopping.
A state-linked technology group has established the country’s first online supermarket aimed at revolutionising the shopping…
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Deployment may strengthen repressive regime in Tehran and could lead to action against US interests in region
Iran greeted news of the US plans to station missile defences in neighbouring Arab states with a stony official silence today. While the development went unreported by the two official news agencies, IRNA and Fars, the closest thing to a government response was a comment from a hardline MP, Hassan Sobhani-niya, that the matter would “probably” be discussed by the parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee on Tuesday.
Yet behind the exterior of affected insouciance, the move will have injected a new sense of urgency into decision-making in Tehran. “The reaction in…
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• Former chief prosecutor blamed in MPs’ report
• Three activists died at detention centre
Iranian MPs lifted a blanket of official denial on the country’s post-election upheaval today by blaming a senior regime insider for abuses that led to the deaths of at least three prisoners in a detention centre.
In the first publicly documented admission that abuses occurred in the weeks after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election, the majlis, Iran’s parliament, identified Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran’s former chief prosecutor, as the main culprit in the scandal over the Kahrizak facility.
A report read out to MPs said 147 prisoners had been held in a 70-square-metre room for four days…
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Authorities in Iran intensified their campaign to blame the country’s political turmoil on foreigners today by banning contact with more than 60 international organisations.
The intelligence ministry said the blacklist included thinktanks, universities and broadcasting organisations identified as waging a “soft war” aimed at toppling Iran’s Islamic system.
It forbade Iranians from talking to or receiving aid from the proscribed organisations, including the BBC, which last year launched a Farsi satellite television channel, as well as two US government-funded outlets, Voice of America and Radio Farda, both of which broadcast in Farsi.
Also on the list were Wilton Park, a British group that…
