Haleh Esfandiari's Blog

            The following article was originally published as Viewpoints No. 45 by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Haleh Esfandiari                     The Rouhani government, barely 100 days old, has delivered what no other Iranian government had achieved since the initiation…

Haleh Esfandiari             The decisive election of Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s new president has been greeted around the world as a sign that Iranians are tired of hardline policies at home and abroad and are ready to embrace change. But the outcome also raises the question of how the new…

Haleh Esfandiari  Why are 36 Iranian universities now barring women from 77 academic fields, including engineering, accounting, education, counseling, and chemistry?   Rather than announcing across the board restrictions on women in higher education, the government has cleverly left it to…

Haleh Esfandiari What is Iran trying to do or prove in the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to be stoned to death for alleged adultery and later sentenced to hang for complicity in the murder of her husband? The Ashtiani affair shows once again the internal divisions…