SO THANK WHO?
We want to thank everyone participating in IYPT 2011, supporting us or the competition, all the old friends from Germany an of course the new from all over the world, especially from Iran.
We had exciting days in country we’ve never seen before, and we think all teams managed well with the circumstances in a country that suffers missing freedom because of a totalitarian government.
The next weeks we want to share our impressions, thousands of photos, and of course some videos. Stay tuned, watch our blog or visit the upcoming Facebook-Channel of IYPT 2012 in Germany.
I’m Mahshid Sultani your tour leader in Tehran Iran
you can see me in Facebook if you do not remember
I had a wonderful time with u all (esp group of Germany ,Switzerland ,Sweden ,Lebanon)
wish to see u again and again
congart for ur interesting blog
Salam,
I hope you really enjoyed Islamic Republic of Iran and forget all the problems you had here.
I’m an Iranian girl (AmirKabir university student) who was with you in Isfahan too and I don’t think we are living in a country with totalitarian government!!! We pride on our BRAVE government which made us more independent from the other countries than before. You can see a lot of GREAT scientific progresses in this government!
Could you please tell me one of the lacks of freedom in my country?!!!
I suggest you to learn about the country you’re going to travel to first and not only trust on the things you hear.
I also really ask you NOT to rely on Internet or western medias about Iran , because you can find a looooooooooooooot of lies about Iran there!!
Iran is a wide beautiful country which you need to stay at least 1 month to visit the important places ! I invite you all to come to Islamic Republic of Iran again soon as tourists (Not for tournoments, meetings, etc!!)
If you have any questions about my country, my culture, Islam, etc or need any information, just ask:
kahkashan_na@yahoo.com
God Bless You…
Salam,
you ask for “one of the lacks of freedom” in Iran – ok, what about the freedom to choose which websites you want to visit? Last time I checked, http://iypt.wordpress.com was blocked in Iran… So you yourself had to somehow circumvent the system to write something good about it
Or what about the freedom to have fun? http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/08/05/students-preparing-to-take-on-authorities-by-staging-another-water-fight/
Ok, you asked for one, this are already two, so i’ll stop now.
God Bless You…
Dear Tim,
Salam.
You can see that I easily visit your website!!!
About the “having fun” , I read the article!!! heheheheh…was too funny! full of lies, as usual! Hearing different big lies from FoxNews about Iran and Islam is something very usual and common !!
Look…Of course having fun and differnt festivals are our right and we do them every year. I’m living in this country and can never remember somebody stoped us.”The youth want to show that they need change”!!! Odd!! Which youth?! I don’t want to say that all the Iranians are pleased from the state,because here isn’t an autopea , but the word “The Youth” is too big for those little number of people who don’t like our goverment! And everyone knows that FaceBook isn’t a good scale for judging about that!
Of course being happy has no problem here and definitely FoxNews will NEVER show our happy cermonies, festivals, etc . If this news is basically true, I can guess what happened in such mixtured gathering. Look…here is an Islamic country and people are Muslims so of course they expect everyone to respect the Islamic values.
“It is common for young people in Iran to be questioned for their clothing, hairstyles, and even choice in music.” hehehehe….Come on! I can easily see people here who listen to every kind of music , even loudly in the car!!! Nobody stops them… How funny!! You can also wear whatever you like , but your cloth should keep your Hijab. (About this rule, I can tell you the reason if you’re interested in!)
I don’t really know if the people in this HAPPY program wanted to do any political protests or not, but I don’t think you can find any government in any country which stays silent in political protests.Of course the governments in EVERY country will defend of itself.We see such things a lot in Europe like some months ago in Britain while the polices even hit the young students who came to street for the high expenses of schools!! Two years ago, after election, we saw some people who came to streets to protest in Iran, but when they started to break people’s shops and damage people’s cars, etc, the other people started to stop them (not only police) . It shows that such people aren’t too many in Iran.
And about Ramadhan month, how funny it is : “Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset and do not partake in any bodily pleasures, such as swimming.”…heheheh…body pleasures!!!! You can’t swim when you fast , but not because it’s a body pleasure !
Hey, Tim , I told you before that please don’t trust on medias about Iran and Islam! There, you can find a lot of strange lies!!!
Sorry to talk a lot!
God Bless You…
Salam,
So we could discuss lot’s about how “fair and balanced” Fox news is (it’s not, I totally agree with you on that one) and all the other things we started to talk about. But this would lead us nowhere, and others have had these discussions lots and lots of times before.
now I could go into details of what you write, and we could continue this discussion for a very long time, and probably i’d even enjoy that. You seem to have had such discussions before, and I always love a good discussion, just for the sake of it
I have spent some days in Iran, not nearly enough to really “understand” such a complex country, but long enough to understand one very important thing: I have met some people who I now consider my friends, and some of them are unhappy and would very much love to have the freedom that I e.g. I have. I care for them and I want them to be happy.
God Bless You…
Tim
Sorry but i have to disagree with what has been said about Iran beeing a free county.
I am almost sure that you won’t be able to legally acess this website, but maybe other readers will be able to:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/iran/report-2010
Actually I was very very sad that the IYPT was held in Iran this year, because the last 4 years I enjoed IYPT very much and was a team member 3 times and teamleader in Vienna and would have loved to be teamleader again this year. However this was not possible, bacause I personally don’t belive in any god or gods or anything supernatural, and in any civlized county I have the right to hold this belive as well as any other belief I want. However as far as I know the penalty for apostasy according to shaira law is death.(If perhaps I am mistaken, then i would love to be enlightened on that topic. As far as I know if you are muslim and choose not to belive anymore you shall die.)
Now I am sure that i would have been fine in Iran and nobody would have actually killed me, but would you feel comfortable if you visited a country where anyone holding the same belifs as you (being Muslim as I assume) would face the death penalty, just because he was say a christian beforehand? Would you feel free if people having the same worldview as you were persecuted and not even considered a person? Tell me can you get passport or any other ID document in Iran if you do not belong to any faith?
In our country we had this kind of thing in the middle ages, but we have moved on since then…
Live long and prosper,
Angel Usunov
Dear Angel,
So of course nothing bad would happen for you if you came here , as we had some of our students who came to Iran this year for IYPT from different countries who had NO religion or special faith! Nothing bad happened for them…Believe me! The only important thing is that when you enter to an Islamic country(not only Iran) the people expect you to respect their rules.That’s it! For example when there is a sin for Muslim men or boys to look at a non-Hijabi girl (it’s an islamic rule) , so of course we ask the foreign girls and women to respect our rule and wear Hijab when they are in Iran.Is it hard?!! I think if you enter to each country, you should respect their rules.
I saw the website.(Of course I had no time to read it all, sorry!!!)
About the thing you said, I have to really feel sorrow for you that believed such a funny wrong thing about Iran. I don’t know if you’ve read my first comment here or not, but I said there to everyone,EVERYONE in all over the world , that PLEASE do NOT believe what you hear from Iran and Islam out of Iran from medias,Internets, etc. Most of them are lies.Why don’t you research well before accepting such things?!!!
Did you really avoid coming to Iran just because of such funny news?!! Hehehehe…
Hey, look, Iran is an Islamic country,means most of Iranians are Muslims and the state is Islamic and the laws are taken from Islamic laws and the culture of people is almost Islamic.It doesn’t mean that all the people in Iran are Muslims! In Iran you can find people from differnt attitudes and differnt religions.We have Christians, jews, zoroastrians,etc. You can definitely find some people who don’t worship anything too.Look, I’m talking about the people who live in Iran , let alone the guests and tourists!! We have a lot of foreign guests every year who come to Iran for different reasons and we kill none of them!!
And about the penalty you talked about.It’s a big lie dear friend.First of all, the thing you said is about the Muslims who changed their religion from Islam to another religion.So of course it doesn’t include you!!(Were you a Muslim before?!) Secondly,killing is the penalty of every Muslim who changes his/her religion from Islam to another religion AND starts to fight or intrigue against Muslims.That’s it!
I really got sad that you didn’t attend in IYPT for such funny reason.I hope one day, you come to Iran and enjoy it.
I’m also ready to answer you if there is any questions: kahkashan_na@yahoo.com
God Bless You…