Mirza Taqi Khan Amir-e Kabir (ca. 1806-1852) was the greatest prime minister of the Qajar dynasty. In just 3 years he accomplished more than the combined efforts of the other chief ministers of the dynasty and laid the foundations of modernization in...

Iranian police and plainclothes security agents broke up a sit-in marking Monday's anniversary of a bloody raid on a Tehran university dormitory, then stormed the offices of the country's main pro-democracy student group, student leaders said.Fifteen students and a mother were beaten and detained, they...

About 100 students staged a rare protest Monday against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling him a "dictator" as he gave a speech at Tehran University marking the beginning of the academic year.While the demonstrators and hard-line students loyal to Ahmadinejad scuffled in the auditorium, the...

Hundreds of Iranian students expressed their anger over a government crackdown on activists in a protest Sunday at Tehran University, the second such demonstration in less than a week, witnesses and state radio said.One witness, Mehdi Arabshahi, said the protest lasted more than two hours...

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed to be delighted when reformist students disrupted his visit to their elite university in December, burning his portrait and shouting "Death to the dictator!"It showed the world that Iranians can protest "with an absolute, total freedom," the hard-line president wrote on...