Kolbari in Kurdish areas, fuel carriers in Balochistan and other forms of informal and risky employment in other border areas, including Azerbaijan, are part of the economic reality of regions that have faced structural poverty, a lack of sustainable job opportunities and deprivation of development opportunities for years. In these regions, a significant part of […]...

Let’s say a resident of Marivan applies for a border trade quota. He has submitted his residency documents, but the answer is simply: Your conditions were not met. He does not know which document was incomplete, whether the quota capacity was filled or other people had priority. More importantly, he does not know where to […]...

Kolbari and fuel bartering cannot be analyzed within the classical framework of informal trade practices; this phenomenon is, first and foremost, a survival strategy in the context of structural poverty, chronic unemployment, and regional discrimination. It was in this context that the “Law on the Organization and Supervision of Border Trade (Kolbari and Melvani) and […]...

A failed state is a state that is unable to perform its functions as a state. Such a state is incapable of establishing social order, monopolizing the use of violence, meeting the basic needs of the people of the society, establishing security and the rule of law, and some of its functions are performed by […]...

The adoption of the Law on the Organisation and Supervision of Border Trade (Kulbari and Maritime Trade) and the Creation of Sustainable Employment for Border Residents in 2024 can be understood as a form of official acknowledgement by the Islamic Republic that kulbari, the practice of carrying goods across borders, cannot be viewed solely through […]...

The phenomenon of kolbari has become one of the most painful manifestations of the informal economy in the western and northwestern borders of Iran in recent decades. Kolbari is mainly prevalent in the provinces of West Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Kermanshah and Ilam. Field estimates show that about 70 thousand people are kolbari in the provinces of […]...

In the image that remains of Hamid Mahdavi, we see a man carrying a wounded man on his shoulder and trying to pull him away from danger in the middle of an unsafe street. He is running; not to escape from another, but to save another. At that moment, the person on his shoulder is, […]...

I am bound; still behind bars. I am propaganda; for the regime is against me. I am an insult; from one leader to another, I am passed around. I am a cigarette, covering my tracks; this smoke rises from the fire within me. This time, the smoke rises from young trees. I am smoke, the […]...

Question 1: Looking back from a distance of twenty years at August 27, 2006 (5 Shahrivar 1385), and the launch of the “One Million Signatures Campaign,” what is the greatest misconception in evaluating this movement, and where should its real achievement be sought? The greatest mistake is to measure the campaign’s success or failure solely […]...

I belong to a generation of women who have spent a large part of their lives in conflict with the Islamic Republic; not only in the streets, in prison, and in civil activism, but also in the media, in photographs and images, in those very places that the government, whenever it has deemed necessary, has […]...

The “One Million Signatures Campaign to Change Discriminatory Laws” (Change for Equality), launched in August 2006 (Mordad 1385) through the efforts of a group of women’s rights activists, is regarded as one of the most prominent, cohesive, and influential collective actions in Iran’s contemporary history. By adopting an issue-oriented approach and making use of social […]...

When does a movement that claims to represent “all women” turn the experience of one particular group of women into the general experience of women as a whole? When we speak of the “Iranian women’s movement,” exactly which women are we talking about? Who defines these women? Who decides what constitutes a women’s issue? Is […]...