Saudi Arabia has exported around the world an intolerant and violent ideology that inspires Islamic State and all similar groups. By contrast, the cultural export for which Iran is most well-known in the west is its thriving and poetic cinema. Iran has a long way to go at home and abroad, but let’s keep things in perspective. Saudi Arabia is an ally of the west and the west keeps closing its eyes and ears, selling it lethal arms and denying the central role this country plays in jihadi violence

Kuwait says it is recalling its ambassador to Iran as a regional row over the execution of a Shia cleric in Saudi Arabia deepens.

I stay because, as my mother never stopped repeating, I am my own woman, but also my own man. By Habibe Jafarian, translated from the Persian by Salar Abdoh.

Saudi Arabia says it has broken off diplomatic ties with Iran, amid a row over the Saudi execution of prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

Late in 2014, I was abruptly pardoned and freed from Evin prison in northern Tehran. In November 2008, I had been sentenced to nearly 20 years in jail, mostly over my web activities, and thought I would end up spending most of my life in those cells. So the moment, when it came, was unexpected. I was sharing a cup of tea when the voice of the floor announcer – another prisoner – filled all the rooms and corridors: “Dear fellow inmates, the bird of luck has once again sat...

As the world marks International Human Rights Day on Thursday, Iran is continuing its execution spree with the announcement that a woman has been sentenced to death by stoning. The gruesome penalty, in which the wrongdoer is buried up to their shoulders and pelted with rocks, was first reported on the Persian-language Iranian website LAHIG. The woman, who was identified only by the initials “A.Kh,” was convicted of being complicit in her husband's murder.

On January 25, 1983, my father and twenty-one of his friends were led onto a snowy soccer pitch in Amol. There, the Iranian government executed them. By Neda Semnani.

Struggles intensify as elections loom in February. But succession to Ayatollah Khamenei as leader appears to be at the centre of the in-fighting, says Gareth Smyth.

Guess who’s not coming to dinner — or even breakfast or lunch? Ahead of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s landmark European trip kicking off this weekend, French officials reportedly nixed plans for a formal meal in Paris with President François Hollande following a dispute over the menu. The Iranians, according to France’s RTL Radio, insisted on a wine-free meal with halal meat — a request based on Islamic codes that amounted to culinary sacrilege in France...

Iran’s supreme court this week confirmed the death penalty of a Sunni preacher arrested in

A KFC-branded fried chicken restaurant that opened its doors Sunday night in Iran's capital city of Tehran was shut down after just one day in operation.

After Iran's Islamic Revolution secretive courts were set up to try suspected ideological opponents of the regime, with no jury, no defence lawyers and often little evidence.

The United States has confirmed that Iran tested a medium-range missile capable of delivering a nuclear weapon, in "clear violation" of a United Nations Security Council ban on ballistic missile tests, a senior U.S. official said on Friday. "The United States is deeply concerned about Iran's recent ballistic missile launch," the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said in a statement.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Tuesday that there are "strong indications" that Iran's test of a new precision-guided ballistic missile on Sunday violated a U.N. Security Council resolution. The U.N. Security Council prohibits Iran from undertaking any activity related to ballistic missiles that could deliver a nuclear warhead, but Iranian officials have pledged to ignore the ban.

Iran tested a new precision-guided ballistic missile on Sunday in defiance of a United Nations ban, signaling an apparent advance in Iranian attempts to improve the accuracy of its missile arsenal. The Islamic Republic has one of the largest missile programs in the Middle East, but its potential effectiveness has been limited by poor accuracy.

Eight members of Iran's national women's football team are actually men awaiting sex change operations, reports have claimed. A report in the 'Daily Telegraph' quoted an Iranian football official revealing the bizarre development. Iran's national football association was accused of being "unethical" for knowingly fielding eight men in its women's team.

Hundreds of Iranian troops have arrived in Syria to join a major ground offensive in support of President Bashar al-Assad's government, Lebanese sources said on Thursday, a further sign of the rapid internationalization of a civil war in which every major country in the region has a stake.

The Iranian government is earning more from tax than oil for the first time in almost half a century as the country shifts its traditional reliance on crude to taxation revenues in the face of plummeting oil prices. President Hassan Rouhani’s economic strategy is to significantly reduce the government’s dependency on oil and instead collect tax more systematically, according to Ali Kardor, the deputy managing director of the national Iranian oil company.

Today, the city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan is relatively remote, known mostly for its magnificent medieval ruins. But over a millennium ago, it was one of the richest cities on the infamous trade route known as the Silk Road. Back in the 600s CE, that route was called simply "the road to Samarkand."

Islamic dress laws have failed to protect women who talk of constant unwanted attention with the tacit approval of all, including the authorities who are supposed to protect them