Rt Rev Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani tells Desert Island Discs how she came to UK at 14 after deadly ambush of elder brother
The Bishop of Chelmsford has told of how her brother was murdered in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, leading her to flee to Britain as a child.
On Sunday, the Rt Rev Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani will tell BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs about the day her brother Bahram, 24, was killed in an ambush on 6 May 1980, when she was 14.
Continue reading...Former foreign secretary says doing so would benefit both reform movement in country and Britain’s credibility
The UK should finally acknowledge its leading role in the 1953 coup that toppled Iran’s last democratically elected leader, for the sake of Britain’s credibility and the Iranian reform movement, a former foreign secretary has said.
The US formally admitted its role 10 years ago with the declassification of a large volume of intelligence documents, which made clear that the ousting of the elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosadegh, 70 years ago this week was a joint CIA-MI6 endeavour. The formal UK government position is to refuse to comment on an intelligence matter.
Continue reading...Female students reportedly given sham disciplinary ‘hearings’, suspended from classes and threatened with ‘zero grades’ for defying head covering law
At least 60 female students in Iran have reportedly been barred from university for flouting the country’s mandatory hijab law.
Videos recently shared by citizen journalists show the harassment of women and girls in subways, streets and university campuses by disciplinary committees and pro-regime civilians. In defiance, female university students across the country have been recording themselves without headscarves.
Continue reading...Reza Pahlavi, whose father was deposed in 1979, urges west to give active support and proscribe Revolutionary Guards
The Iranian revolution is at a do-or-die moment, requiring western governments to give their full, active support or risk seeing the movement’s impact wane, Reza Pahlavi, the oldest son of the former Shah of Iran who was deposed in 1979, has said in a Guardian interview.
Pahlavi said there were signs that if the west imposed maximum pressure, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and some reformist politicians would desert the regime.
Continue reading...Demonstrations that began with death of Mahsa Amini while detained by morality police pose biggest threat to regime in 13 years
Iran’s president has vowed to “deal decisively” with protests that are gathering momentum across much of the country one week after the death of a woman in custody who had been detained by the morality police.
Demonstrations have spread to most of Iran’s 31 provinces and almost all urban centres, pitting anti-government demonstrators against regime forces, including the military, and posing the most serious test to the hardline state’s authority in more than 13 years.
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