Not even a statewide ban can withstand the almighty power of the World Cup.

About five weeks ago, Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist living in London, created a Facebook page entitled My Stealthy Freedom, encouraging women to Iranian women to submit pictures of themselves without wearing their mandatory hijab. The bold page is meant to challenge the idea of compulsory traditional dress,…

Earlier this week, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for a population increase, sharing a 14-point plan dedicated to combating the country's declining birth rate. Critics worry that this move could restrict access to contraception and harm women's rights.

The three women and three men arrested for making a video of them dancing to Pharrell's song "Happy" have reportedly been released from custody.

A video posted on YouTube by six Iranians who proclaim themselves "Tehran Pharell Williams fans" has gotten said individuals arrested.

There aren't enough babies in Iran, so the government is swapping sponsored vasectomies for golden newborns. That's an exaggeration; but the government is thinking about giving families gold coins for their new babies to encourage an uptick in births. After producing condoms like candy in 1992, the country's…

International observers hoping with crossed fingers and toes that Iranian politics would be just a teensy more progressive thanks to the country’s newly-elected president, Hassan Rowhani, will be disappointed to learn that, surprise! this is so not the case.

Parkour is becoming really popular among young, Iranian women, but it's probably best to only try some of this stuff if your limbs are still young enough to bounce back from catastrophic injury. Or if you have some sweet health insurance. Or if you're any number of limber superheroes not blessed with the ability to…

A prominent cleric in Iran has warned his fellow countrymen that if there’s an earthquake a comin’, it’s probably because of women who wear “revealing” dresses, since, as geologists have known for years now, earthquakes are nothing more than the deep belly laughter of the Earth as she laughs in utter frustration at…

Fars, a "semi-official" Iranian news agency, photoshopped an image of Michelle Obama announcing the Best Picture winner at the Academy Awards, adding sleeves and a high crew neck to her gown, making it appear more modest.

Oh my god, I am giving this story about a man with a hairy eyeball THE WORLD'S HAIRIEST EYEBALL award. Hot on the heels of that lady with bone shards growing in her eyelids comes this unfortunate dude with a big, hairy eyeball tumor. And like my grandmama always said, there's only one thing to do if you don't know…

An Iranian Parliament member named Seyyed Mehdi Mousavi Nejad asserts that Russian women who work at the nation's only nuclear power plant are defying the laws of the country by eschewing the hijab laws. They apply to women in Iran regardless of region or nationality, and penalty for not wearing one of the traditional…

Apparently Hurricane Sandy can't be blamed on climate change or a loss of Arctic Ice or even the gays; according to one pro-Iran, anti-US group in Syria, the whole storm was brought to you by the weather-controlling (but curiously still non-nuclear weapon possessing!) Iranian regime.

Like an incredibly high stakes Miss America competition, the last Presidential debate of the 2012 election season has come and gone. And because both candidates are fighting to the death over the tiny sliver of undecided voters (really, what amounts to twelve people who own Puddle of Mudd CD's scratching their butts…

As the Iranian school year begins today, Human Rights Watch is urging the nation to reconsider the male-only restrictions on 77 majors, including accounting, counseling, and engineering. Alarmingly, the ban was only instituted last month; while no clear reason for the new restriction has been cited by the Iranian…

The powers that be in Iran have turned to an unlikely ally to help them buttress the country's falling marriage rate — the internet, a disembodied feline entity that is try to take over the world one cat video at a time which the censor-prone Iranian rulers have been more than happy to restrict over the last several…

When Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, Princess of the Great Commonwealth of Shinylocks and Prime Minister of Party Favors was doling out medals for men's discus at last night's installment of London's Paralympics, second-place finisher Mehrdad Karam Zadeh refrained from shaking the Duchess' hand, which…

Iranian women have been killing it in the classroom as of late: 65% of the country's college students are female, women outnumbered men by three to two in passing this year's university entrance exam, and, according to UNESCO, Iran has highest ratio of female to male undergraduates in the world.

The growing trend for Iranian women to wear Western fashions prompted Iran's reactionary "morality police" to raid 87 coffee shops on Saturday. Tehran police official Alireza Mehrabi explained that the coffee shops "were shut for not following Islamic values, providing hookah to women, and lacking proper licenses,"…

Shane Bauer and Sarah Shroud, two-thirds of the hiking triumvirate that accidentally wandered across the Iranian border and were subsequently jailed in a Midnight Express-type situation in 2009, got married in California this week. Third-wheel Josh Fattal served as the couple's best man.