Rooyesh

After posting bail, Mahboubeh Hossein Zadeh and Nahid Keshavarz were released, Sunday evening, April 15, 2007. These members of the One Million Signatures Campaign, which aims to change discriminatory laws against women, were arrested on April 2nd, along with three others, while collecting signatures in support of the Campaign. While the other three members of the Campaign, Saeideh Amin, Sarah Imanian and Homayoun Nami, were released after spending a day in detention, Nahid and Mahboubeh were transferred to Evin Prison, and remained there until their release on Sunday.

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The EU foreign policy chief and Iran’s top negotiator are to meet for the first time since February in a fresh attempt to break the deadlock over Tehran’s nuclear enrichment. An EU official said the principle for the meeting, taking place next week, was established, adding: “It will seek to see whether we can resume negotiations.” Earlier, the Iranian ISNA news agency said Javier Solana and Ali Larijani had agreed to meet after a telephone conversation - the latest in a series of contacts since the UN security council tightened sanctions against Tehran last month.

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FOR a man who used to beat up reform-minded students, Masoud Dehnamaki comes across as deceptively mellow. Once a militia leader, he has put away his cudgel and directed one of Iran’s biggest-ever cinema hits. After two successful documentaries, about prostitution and football violence, Mr Dehnamaki’s first feature film, now filling cinemas in the capital, Tehran, is an irreverent comedy called Ekhrajiha (“The Outcasts”). By portraying a gang of Tehran thieves and junkies as war heroes, it took the authorities by surprise.

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Iran’s president stood at the dais, scolding his nation’s enemies. “The army stands against any aggressor and will cut off its hand,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared to the television cameras as soldiers and tanks filed by on the avenue before him.  The scene at Tehran’s Army Day celebration this week was familiar. But the message was ambiguous. Was the annual military procession a menacing exhibition of Iran’s increasing power in the Middle East or simply a display of the regime’s ability to defend itself against any attacker, as Ahmadinejad suggested?

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