9/24/09, NYC - The Century Foundation today launched insideiran.org, a special project taking readers inside the political crisis in Iran. The centerpiece of the project is a Web site, www.insideiran.org, which features articles, analysis, and the latest media reports from some of the world's most prominent Iranian scholars, journalists, and bloggers who are either inside the country or who live temporarily outside. The project will also feature a newsletter than can be delivered by email to those who sign up.

Century Foundation fellow and Iran analyst Geneive Abdo will lead the project and serve as editor for the Web site. The project is supported by a grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

As Iran's internal crisis continues and information from inside the country becomes even more scarce, insideiran.org will be a critical resource, providing news analysis and provocative thinking that cannot be found elsewhere. This material is particularly relevant for policymakers, as the U.S. administration prepares to talk with Iran's leaders at the highest level of negotiations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Despite the Iranian government's attempts to impose a technological blockade, insideiran.org will tap into the networks of commentators who have managed to find innovative ways to get their voices heard outside the country.

About Geneive Abdo
Geneive Abdo has been a fellow at The Century Foundation since 2007. Before joining TCF, she was a liaison for the United Nations' Alliance of Civilizations, a project created by the U.N. secretary general to improve relations between Western and Islamic societies. She was a foreign correspondent for many years in the Middle East and the broader Islamic world. From 1998 to 2001, she was the Iran correspondent for the British newspaper, the Guardian, and a regular contributor to the Economist. She was the first American journalist to be based in Tehran since the United States cut off ties with Iran in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. She is author of the books Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America After 9/11 (Oxford University Press, 2006) and No God but God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam (Oxford University Press, 2000), and the coauthor of Answering Only to God: Faith and Freedom in Twenty-First Century Iran (Henry Holt, 2003).

For interview requests with the insideiran.org editor and contributors, contact Geneive Abdo at abdo@insideiran.org.