The Paris Review
Subscribe Current Issue Back Issues Interviews Blog Books Print Series Audio Foundation Events Store About

Dragnet Tehran
Abbas Kowsari
Issue 186, Fall 2008
Purchase this issue


In 2003 the first group of female cadets graduated from Iran’s police academy. Tehran’s police chief Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf—now the mayor of Tehran—had obtained permission from the country’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, to create the all-female police units, and these policewomen were the products of a three-year training program. Abbas Kowsari was allowed to photograph the academy’s graduation ceremony in 2005, a dramatic pageant, and a historical anomaly. “During Qalibaf’s time as police chief,” the photographer said, “policewomen performed many martial arts and chase routines, including climbing walls and jumping out of the windows of moving cars. But after he stepped down, that training was eliminated. Last year’s ceremony was limited to a parade, speeches, target practice, and the loading of revolvers by blindfolded policewomen graduates. No photographers were allowed.”





To see the rest of Abbas Kowsari's photographs from the Fall 2008 issue, click the link below:
Purchase this issue
Look Listen Read



SEARCH     Full Search
E-mail this page | Print | View Cart | Check Out
Selections From the Current Issue
Summer 2010
INTERVIEW
R. Crumb, David Mitchell
FICTION
Katherine Dunn
DISPATCH
Julia Whitty
MEMOIR
Wenguang Huang, Victor LaValle
POETRY
Matthew Zapruder
PHOTOGRAPHS
Jeff Antebi
DNA logo
©2010, The Paris Review
Terms and Conditions Privacy Policy Contact Site Map