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Monday, 3 March 2008
Iranian to pay 124,000-rose dowry
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An Iranian court has ordered a man to give his wife the 124,000 roses that he promised in her dowry, after she filed a complaint to claim it, reports say.
The woman said she was claiming the dowry because her "very stingy husband" would not even pay for a cup of coffee, according to the E'temad newspaper.
The court has seized the man's flat until he produces all of the roses.
Under Iranian law, a woman can claim her dowry, or mahr, at any time during a marriage or when getting divorced.
The gift becomes the property of the wife to do whatever she likes with.
It is required in order for the marriage contract and the marriage itself to be valid.
'Billionaire friends'
According to E'temad, the woman, identified as Hengameh, decided to claim her entire dowry of 124,000 red roses after 10 years of marriage to "punish her very stingy husband".
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"Shortly after marriage, I realised that Shahin was very cheap," she told the newspaper. "He even refused to pay for my coffee if we went to a cafe or restaurant."
Shahin told the court he could only afford to give her five roses a day and complained that it was his wife's "billionaire friends who had put such ideas in her head".
But the judge rejected Shahin's pleas and ordered his $64,000 (£33,000) flat to be confiscated until he has bought them all.
A long-stemmed rose costs about $2 (£1.09) in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
It is common in Iran to offer gold coins or property as mahr. An Iranian man can end up in jail for dowry debts.
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Thursday, 10 July, 2003
Iran's frustrated generation
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"Things have improved here but there are so many things I want to do and I just can't stop thinking about them," says 20-year-old Parisa - not her real name.
Born after the 1979 Islamic Revolution she is part of the baby boom generation encouraged by high rates of population growth at the time of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Parisa has just finished doing her university entrance exams. She has a one in five chance of admission.
An estimated 70% of Iran's population is under 30 years of age.
Opportunities for the young are thin on the ground with unemployment as high as 28% for those under 30.
"Absolutely all of my friends would like to go abroad," says Parisa.
She sports the latest Tehran fashion — bleached blonde long hair sticking out of her see-through headscarf, and tight drainpipe jeans with the skimpiest of short overcoats that does little to hide her figure.
Two weeks ago the dam's head of construction, Wang Xiaofeng, said the ecological effects of the dam could not be ignored.
"At the parties I go to I see girls wearing very open clothes — short skirts and low-cut evening tops," Parisa says.
Boredom
She adds that her greatest wish is to be able to go to a party and not have to worry if she is going to end up in jail as a result, or to have a meal in a restaurant and not have to bother about her headscarf slipping off.
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It is sheer boredom that seems to be the greatest problem.
"There's nothing for us to do here," she explains.
"The most we can do is go from one coffee shop to another... there are sports clubs but they're all indoors. They're hot and not nice and anyway they're expensive to join."
But the generation that experienced the pre-reform era believes young Iranians simply do not know how lucky they are.
"It was an awful and closed society," says Surreya, explaining that the first years of the revolution saw debate as to whether women could even work.
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Surreya is a gym instructor and says inspectors used to come and check what music they were playing.
"If we used this kind of rock and pop they didn't like it — they suggested we use monotone music without lyrics. But nowadays I don't see them around... we are free to do whatever we want," she says.
Reformists' dilemma
Women in their 30s describe going to weddings shrouded from head to toe and without any make-up or nail polish for fear of being stopped at a checkpoint and scrutinised.
"When you compare the young people now with us they have all this freedom and they're so ungrateful and don't appreciate what they've got," says 34-year-old Nassim.
"For us life now is like heaven, but the young think it's hell and they constantly moan and groan about everything," she says, pointing out that in the early years of the revolution there was no music at all but now there are Iranian rock bands who give concerts.
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The dilemma for the reformists is whether giving concessions to young people allows them more room for expression and thus protects the Islamic system of government — or whether it just whets their appetites for more freedoms that may ultimately undermine the system.
"The older generation is not able to communicate properly with the young," says journalist Minda Badiyi, who specialises in youth issues and teaches communications at university level.
"Today's young people want freedoms in line with what the young have everywhere else in the world. Because they are denied that we are a society in crisis," she says.
'Calm and patient'
Mrs Badiyi says the recent student unrest was a manifestation of this sense of discontent that officials have failed to address.
In particular she says two decades after the revolution the state has failed to convince young girls of the need to wear headscarves and modest dress.
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"The government says we are an Islamic state and everyone must cover up, but the resistance of young girls is a big problem for them," she says.
She argues that women should choose Islamic dress voluntarily based on their belief and not as a dictate from above.
"We must try to balance the capacity for change and the demands of the younger generation," says reformist MP Dr Elaheh Koolaee.
"It's very, very difficult, I know, but we must try," she says explaining the need for "dialogue with the younger generation to convince them to be calm, to be patient".
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Saturday, 19 July, 2003
Eating burgers beneath the veil
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When you talk about going to Iran people have images of hanging out in leafy gardens and traditional tea houses or encountering crowds of angry men shouting "Death to America".
But I spent many of my evenings with my three-year-old child in burger joints like Mac Mashallas - an Iranian imitation of McDonald's - the fast-food icon of the "Great Satan".
American-style restaurants have rapidly spread throughout Tehran in the past year or two.
They are popular haunts for young people who now have access to western culture in a way that is unprecedented since the Islamic Revolution.
The ketchup may not be Heinz and the Coca-Cola is certainly not the real thing but these are places where you can feel you might be anywhere in the world - almost.
That is if it was not for the neon sign saying respect Islamic moral values, the head-scarved waitresses and the portraits of Iran's spiritual leaders that seem strangely out of place in the world of Happy Meals and Ronald McDonald.
Cutting edge
The differences are shrinking in a country that once talked about building a Chinese-style wall around itself to protect its values from outside corruption.
Disney has penetrated this market like every other - at amusement arcades they sell Mr Potato Head and Buzz Lightyear from the Toy Story films.
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While children play on flight simulator video games which say US State Department, I wonder who they think the enemy is being bombed out of existence on the screen.
It is only the mothers who look a bit like something from another planet - some in diaphanous headscarves and chic coats - others shrouded in seemingly endless layers of black clothing despite the searing summer heat.
But the teenage girls in outdoor cafes and fast food restaurants are pushing the boundaries like never before.
Short white trousers to mid-calf with no socks, pointy, fashion-victim, high-heeled shoes and skin-tight overcoats that only reach to the knees.
That is with long dyed blonde hair that is only nominally covered with a half see-through white or pink headscarf.
The effect is fairly electric - especially when combined with huge quantities of make-up. It certainly has nothing to do with being modest and demure and everything to do with being a rebel.
These girls are among 45 million people who are today under the age of 30 - the massive force responsible for the winds of change currently blowing over Iran - a country of 65 million.
And it is these young Iranians who have been taking to the streets recently to protest against what they see as the lack of freedom.
Open to outside influences, they now have a taste of what they are missing and they are hungry for more.
Pushing for change
The frustration is huge - one young mother told me she was thinking of taking her two children out to anti-government protests and just leaving a note for her husband to find when he came back from work.
He had warned her not to go - asking who would look after the kids if something happened to her. She was propelled not by recklessness but by a desire for a better future for her daughters.
For the slightly older generation in their 30s who remember the pre-reform years, there is an attitude of awe and envy.
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They talk about having had to go to weddings in ankle-length black cloaks with no make-up or nail polish in case they were stopped at a checkpoint and scrutinised.
One woman who grew up during the first years of the revolution described going to England and not knowing who the Hollywood star Richard Gere was - to the shock and horror of her new friends.
Those were the days of isolation - now satellite television, smuggled videos and the internet mean that young Iranians can watch the latest films and keep up with western fashions.
In a country where - if you are a woman - you have to cover even your ankles to enter a government office, you can still watch Fashion TV or sex channels among many hundreds of stations you can receive if you have an illegal satellite dish - something that is now common.
Explaining the paradox
There are so many contradictions that make life in Iran difficult to explain - especially to a three-year-old whose favourite word is why.
"Mummy, you look ugilee," said my son when I wore the obligatory headscarf and overcoat.
But being at a phase where he mimics everything I do he of course wanted to wear a headscarf too and be equally "ugilee".
There were tears if he did not have a cloth tied on his head too when we went out.
He attracted such extraordinary looks of either amusement or horror being a boy wearing a scarf that I finally coaxed him into removing it on the grounds that he would seriously offend people.
"Why?" was a question I found hard to answer in simple terms - not wishing to introduce ideas about men lusting after women's ankles to my toddler.
I just said it was the rule and then my child complained Iran had too many rules.
I could not help but wonder if he had accidentally strayed into the realm of political comment.
Young Iranians are now trying to change the rules, and the question is whether the system will bend to accommodate them.
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Photos of Iranian weapons Syria protected by Russia |
Last Victims of Hitler Holocaust — Click here He is just a helpless baby My son was killed He was peacefully sleeping in his cradle |
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Unspeakable grief and horror
...and the circus of deception continues... |
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For archives, these articles are being stored on TheWE.name website.The purpose is to advance understandings of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. |
Shortly after marriage, I realised that Shahin was very cheap
