Mandy Taheri

Reporter @newsweek

| words in @hyperallergic, @people, @interviewmag, @TheBrooklynRail, @americantheatre |

[Azar Nafisi @azarnafisi]

@carole_zimmer @Now_WhatPodcast I hope you’ll listen to our conversation about Iran, Reading Lolita in Tehran, oppression, freedom, and the power of literature here:

https://t.co/lba4ZkiBfC

[Azar Nafisi @azarnafisi]

I had the pleasure of speaking with @carole_zimmer last month, and today our conversation on her podcast, @Now_WhatPodcast, is live. In dark times, particularly with the news in Iran, it is a gift to connect with people who are curious, caring, and committed to informing others.

[Azar Nafisi @azarnafisi]

I’m pleased to share that Reading Lolita in Tehran will be available to watch on demand on August 25!

This film invites us to reflect on freedom, literature & resistance. As with books, films have a beautiful way of connecting us with people we may never meet. Enjoy!
@Kanopy

[Mandy Taheri @mandytaheri]

Backer added, "In this litigation, the federal government contends that it is able to exercise eminent domain in complete disregard of the protections afforded by the First Amendment and [Religious Freedom Restoration Act] RFRA. That is a stunning and legally untenable position."

[Mandy Taheri @mandytaheri]

The Trump administration is moving to acquire church-owned land around Mount Cristo Rey, a Catholic pilgrimage site, for the border wall. The dispute echoes earlier fights over border wall construction, eminent domain and religious sites.
https://t.co/Z7Q55R0etf

[Mandy Taheri @mandytaheri]

"The court has not authorized the government to come onto the property & begin constructing a border wall. The court has made clear that the Diocese will be heard on its religious liberty objections," Jonathan Backer, attorney for the defendant, told me

[Azar Nafisi @azarnafisi]

Thank you @TheWorld for giving me the chance to talk about the complexities of life under the Islamic Republic, the stories behind the making of the film adaptation of Reading Lolita in Tehran, and why its message remains as urgent today as ever.

https://t.co/vRGUX74wpd

[Azar Nafisi @azarnafisi]

@AngelikaFilmNY Then the film will be available at theaters across the U.S.! You can find where it is coming near you here: https://t.co/eMZ4TASM2g

[Mandy Taheri @mandytaheri]

A must see film & an incredible story!

[Azar Nafisi @azarnafisi]

Last night's screening of Reading Lolita in Tehran & a convo w/ the director & cast was so special.
I wish my story was a relic of the past. Instead, decades after I wrote the memoir, its themes of freedom, imagination & the courage to resist oppression remain painfully relevant.

[Azar Nafisi @azarnafisi]

Honored that @BBC included the film adaptation of Reading Lolita in Tehran among ten of its must-see films of the summer!

If you're in NYC, the @AngelikaFilmNY will screen the film on July 9, 10 and 11. https://t.co/owr4oqIoGR

Get your tickets here: https://t.co/w4s8rQ8pPT

[Mandy Taheri @mandytaheri]

As the #Knicks celebrated their first ticker-tape parade, I dug into one of the more surprising names in NYC's Canyon of Heroes--Iran's last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
I visited his plaque & reported the story behind both of his parades. #Iran #Pahlavi
https://t.co/M89OKsSSS2

[Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor]

53 years in the making.

[Dylan Byers @DylanByers]

New statement from Scott Pelley:

There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.

The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58thseason, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.

“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.

The waste is heartbreaking.

Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.

For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.

At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.

I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.

Scott Pelley

[Azar Nafisi @azarnafisi]

Honored to receive the Words to Change Prize from @Metropolisbleu. What gave me the greatest hope, however, were the letters from & convos with young high school girls who wrote about the women of Iran and what their courage has taught them about freedom, dignity, & privilege.

[Azar Nafisi @azarnafisi]

It was a pleasure to speak with @BenjiDelylo of @libe about my love of literature and its enduring power, the troubling similarities among totalitarian leaders in Iran and the U.S., and what is lost when empathy and curiosity disappear.

https://t.co/0BmxAeCj6k

#Iran #IranWar‌

[Azar Nafisi @azarnafisi]

“I've reached the end of this great history

And all the land will fill with talk of me

I shall not die, these seeds I've sown will save

My name and reputation from the grave,

And men of sense and wisdom will proclaim,

When I have gone, my praises and my fame.”

[Azar Nafisi @azarnafisi]

As I write in my foreword to Shahnameh, the Persian book of Kings, the story implies that “in the struggle between the poet and the king, the latter might win this world but to the former belongs the glory that comes with the conquest of that most absolute of all tyrants, time.”

[Azar Nafisi @azarnafisi]

As Iranian civilization is under threat from internal & external forces, I return to my father’s words: “Our country is ancient. It has been invaded many times. What gives it continuity, what makes it dynamic and resilient, is its poetry.”

Tyrants will die, but poetry remains.

[Azar Nafisi @azarnafisi]

What is a writer’s responsibility? I feel that it has always been to give voice to those who have been silenced & to keep people alive through recreating them in our imagination, time & time again. That is why I so often speak of my student Razieh, whom I discussed with @guardian

[Azar Nafisi @azarnafisi]

@France24_en @GavinLeeNews @SalmanRushdie "The Islamic Republic is scared of them because it is scared of the truth. Truth, once you know it, you cannot be silent. They tried everything they could but they could not silence the Iranian people.”