A List of Twitter Users Who Tweet About #Iran and are Not Assholes [Part I]

Intro:

This list is biased. The names in this list belong to people who have proven they are not assholes when tweeting about Iran. If your name is not in this list, it is not necessarily because you are an asshole -- it could just be because I do not know you.  The order of names in this list does not mean anything. I try to add a very brief description for each name in this list. The second part of this list will be published next Friday in time for a proper Follow Friday (#FF).

If you have any suggestion, please tweet them at @IranLGBT or comment in here. 

@TehranBureau: Tehran Bureau is love. It used to be hosted on PBS -- it recently moved to The Guardian. It's the most reliable source of News and, more significantly, Commentary & in-depth Analysis for anything Iran. I got to know it in Summer of 2009 during the bloody days of post-Election protests in Iran.

@eborujerdi: Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi is editor of Iran Pulse of Al-Monitor news site, more importantly, he tweets Iran news and various interesting, cool stuff about culture, modern history, and society of Iran.Not Boring. Fun Person. I suggest avoiding debating things with him on Twitter. Chitchat is fine. 

@AjamMC: Ajam Media Collective is amazing. I don't like the name Ajam, but I can ignore it, because their work quality is high. Amazing Stuff. "Ajam Media Collective is a blog focused on high and low culture in Iran, Central Asia, & the Diaspora." 

@southsouth: Her full name is Maryam Monalisa Gharavi. A source of pride for me is she started following me, then I started to follow her back on twitter. It took me a while to like her. Some of her tweets are rare gems. We have forged a friendship over our mutual disdain for the phony liberal author: Nick Kristof of NYTimes. Her tweets are usually poetic,witty,and/or depressed. A tweet from her is always read in my shop. She is a grad student at Harvard, and so an elitist. Her twitter page background is always something interesting. 

@Roshanakt:  Roshanak Taghavi is a journalist. I have seen her works in The Christian Science Monitor newspaper and Huffington Post.  She tweets various news of Iran --  a good source. She is nice. Her twitter profile picture reminds me of a cousin I have in Tehran.

@BahmanKalbasi: He is from Isfahan, Iran. He is a reporter for BBC Persian in New York. He hates it when I say "Farsi" Language on Twitter, he has tried to correct me into saying "Persian" Language to no avail. He is cool.

@ThomasErdbrink: Thomas Erdbrink is the Chief of Tehran Bureau of The New York Times newspaper. He used to report for Washington Post from Iran before joining NYTimes. His reports/tweets from Tehran are invaluable and insightful -- a great source.

@Gkhosh: Gelare Khoshgozaran is an Iranian artist, more importantly she is a Lesbian. I like her tweets. She is fun, cool and somewhat gloomy. Her tweets are usually good stuff. I wish she tweets more. 

@__Ghazal__: Ghazal is an Iranian Lesbian living in Tehran. I do not know much about her -- I know,but I won't divulge it in here or anywhere. She is a fun and friendly tweep. Her tweets are somewhat depressing, but try being a lesbian living in Tehran under Western Sanction and then try to be jolly. She rightly has tweeted several times: Fuck you, world! I totally agree with her. 

@thekarami: Arash Karami is a journalist and producer for VOA Persian. He used to work for the popular Parazit show prior to working for Ofogh on VOA. His tweets are a good source. He is fun. His tweets are not boring.

@GEsfandiari:  Golnaz Esfandiari is a journalist. She is the editor of Persian Letters blog on Radio Free Europe. Her work is very high quality. She does amazing job of translating/compiling/reporting News of Iran. Her tweets are usually news meaning serious, solid tweets.  She follows few people considering number of people following her, but she's done a good job of replying to my tweets. 

@JasminRamsey:  Jasmin Ramsey is one of those people who has her full name as her twitter handler, like Bahamn Kalbasi or Thomas Erdbrink. She is a journalist. Editor of Lobe Blog. She is an excellent tweep to follow on news of Iran and developments in the US, Europe regarding Iran. She will retweet any tweets that links to Lobe Bog articles. Solid/Serious Tweets. She likes Lana Del Rey. 

@fahimn: Another Journalist. I don't know much about this tweep. But, been following him for a while now. He does an excellent job of tweeting Iran news in both Farsi and English. 

@dudi_cohen: Dudi Cohen is an Israeli journalist who knows Farsi -- apparently he learnt it recently. A couple of times, he asked me Farsi language questions! I like his choice of music. He doesn't tweet much. He likes to visit Iran. He once told me on twitter: "You happy, I happy."

@aminsabeti: Amin Sabeti is a freelance researcher of Persian Media, mostly blogs, and internet censorship in Iran. He tweets in Farsi and English. Mostly Iran news and usually tech news. He does a good job of Re-tweeting interesting Farsi tweets. 

@tparsi: Trita Parsi is head of NIAC: An Iranian-American lobby in Washington D.C. I like his views about sanctions on Iran and how to improve relations with Iran. I do not like his beard. He tweets news mostly. He is knowledgeable and well-respected in the Foreign Relations community as far as I can say. I want to know why his first name is Trita. 

@femiran: Leila Mouri is an Iranian Women's rights activist. She is good. 

@MishaZand: Misha Zand is a fun-loving Iranian girl living in Denmark. She is witty, funny, and critical of things. I remember she had it on her bio that she is some grad student in Iran Studies or Cinema. whichever is fine by me. I expect her to favorite the tweet which I will tweet later linking to this article. She likes kinky tweets. 

@Brenton_Clark84: Brenton Clark is an Australian PhD student interested in Iran, Tajikistan, Afghanistan.  Tweeting good stuff. He usually tweets interesting stuff/articles about Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan that very few people care to tweet. 






To be continued.