Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Ziba Mir-Hosseini

Ziba Mir-Hosseini is Professorial research associate at the Centre of Islamic & Middle Eastern Law, SOAS, University of London

MER Article

Kholoussy, For Better, For Worse

Hanan Kholoussy, For Better, For Worse: The Marriage Crisis That Made Modern Egypt (Stanford, 2010).

Ziba Mir-Hosseini • 4 min read

Current Analysis

Broken Taboos in Post-Election Iran

The on-camera martyrdom of Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26-year old philosophy student shot dead during the protests after the fraudulent presidential election in Iran in June, caught the imagination of the world. But the post-election crackdown has two other victims whose fates better capture the radical

Ziba Mir-Hosseini • 10 min read

Current Analysis

Is Time on Iranian Women Protesters’ Side?

In early June, Zanestan—an Iran-based online journal—announced a rally in Haft Tir Square, one of Tehran’s busiest, to protest legal discrimination suffered by Iranian women. The demonstration was also called to commemorate two landmark events in women’s struggle for equality in Iran. The first was the

Ziba Mir-Hosseini • 16 min read

MER Article

Fatemeh Haqiqatjoo and the Sixth Majles

On February 23, 2004, two days after the conservative victory in the elections for the Seventh Majles, for which the Guardian Council banned over 2,000 reformist candidates, including some 80 current deputies, the reformist-dominated Sixth Majles accepted the resignation of Fatemeh Haqiqatjoo.

Ziba Mir-Hosseini • 15 min read

Current Analysis

Shirin Ebadi's Nobel Peace Prize Highlights Tension in Iran

The decision to award the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize to Shirin Ebadi, the intrepid Iranian human rights lawyer and former judge, took everyone by surprise—not least Ebadi herself. On the morning of October 10, when the award was announced, the Nobel winner was about to leave Paris, where she

Ziba Mir-Hosseini • 9 min read

MER Article

Iranian Cinema

Following the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the inauguration of the Islamic Republic, many predicted that new restrictions would kill off Iran's cinema. But Iranian film has survived, undergoing remarkable transformations in parallel with the wider changes in Iranian culture and society. Today, Ira

Ziba Mir-Hosseini • 9 min read

MER Article

The Rise and Fall of Fa'ezeh Hashemi

Both politics and women’s political activities are radically different under the Islamic Republic of Iran from what they were before the 1979 Revolution. But one fundamental fact has not changed: Politics is still the domain of men, and women who enter the field tend to be related -- either by blood

Ziba Mir-Hosseini • 11 min read