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New Book “The First Brick: How Revolution Gave Birth to Theocracy in Iran” Explores How a Nation’s Dream of Freedom Turned into a Theocratic State

A New Book by Roozbeh Mirebrahimi

New York, NY — October 6, 2025 — The First Brick: How Revolution Gave Birth to Theocracy in Iran, the pioneering new work by Iranian-American journalist and researcher Roozbeh Mirebrahimi, is now available worldwide in print through the Independent Voices Publishing program of Non-Stop Media, Inc.

In this deeply personal yet rigorously researched narrative, Mirebrahimi revisits the 1979 Iranian Revolution from the perspective of the generation born in its aftermath. Through archival research, parliamentary records, and rare testimonies, he traces how the revolution’s early ideals of liberty, justice, and self-determination were replaced by the rise of a clerical theocracy.

Written with the intimacy of lived history and the clarity of investigative journalism, The First Brick takes readers inside the constitutional debates that laid the foundation for Iran’s current system of governance—revealing how the concept of Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist) became embedded in law and redefined the country’s political destiny.

“The first brick determines the shape of the entire wall,” says author Roozbeh Mirebrahimi. “When that first brick was laid in 1979, the revolution’s architecture was already destined to serve power, not freedom. My generation grew up inside that wall—trying to understand how hope turned into control.”

Through vivid portraits of key figures such as Ayatollah Taleqani, Beheshti, Montazeri, and Bazargan, Mirebrahimi reconstructs the moral and political crossroads that shaped the Islamic Republic. His storytelling moves seamlessly between historical narrative and reflective memoir, connecting the revolution’s promises and betrayals to the lived realities of those who came after.

The First Brick is the opening volume of a larger body of work examining the creation, consolidation, and endurance of authoritarian structures within Iran’s post-revolutionary state. It invites global readers to see Iran’s story not as a distant political event but as a universal warning about how revolutions can lose their soul.



About the Author

Roozbeh Mirebrahimi is an Iranian-American journalist, author, and researcher based in New York. A former political reporter in Tehran, he has spent more than two decades studying the intersections of religion, law, and power in Iran. His work includes The Guardian of Authoritarianism: How Iran’s Guardian Council Ensures the Survival of the Islamic Republic’s Autocratic Regime and numerous analyses for international human rights organizations.



Publication Details

The First Brick: How Revolution Gave Birth to Theocracy in Iran

By Roozbeh Mirebrahimi

Publisher: Non-Stop Media, Inc. (Independent Voices Publishing)

Format: Paperback

ISBN: 979-8265512758

Publication Date: September 24, 2025

Available at: Amazon link / Publisher website

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Book Release Announcement

The Ashes Beneath Our Tongues: Between Tehran and Exile

A New Poetry Collection by Dr. Behnaz Amani

New York, September 9, 2025 – Non-Stop Media Inc. is proud to announce the release of The Ashes Beneath Our Tongues: Between Tehran and Exile, the latest poetry collection by Iranian poet, researcher, translator, and human rights activist Dr. Behnaz Amani. Amani’s work lies at the intersection of literature, social critique, and political struggle. Holding a PhD in English Literature, she has taught and conducted research in Iran and across Europe, bridging scholarship, creative writing, and advocacy. Her publications include both Persian and international journals, the poetry collection Love Letters to A., and her Persian translation of The Dreams of a Woman, a UNESCO-commissioned anthology of Hungarian short stories. She taught at universities in Iran until her involvement in the Women, Life, Freedom movement and her defense of students’ rights to free expression led to arrest, persecution, and the loss of her academic position. As a translator and interpreter, Amani has collaborated with leading international human rights organisations. Despite facing ongoing security pressures for her activism, she continues to write, translate, and amplify the voices of women and marginalized communities. She is currently a Writers-in-Exile Fellow. About the Book The Ashes Beneath Our Tongues: Between Tehran and Exile gathers over a decade of Amani’s poetry, written across Iran and Europe. The collection traces a journey from protest and imprisonment to exile, weaving together lyric reflection, documentary fragments, and testimonies of resistance. Opening with poems that capture the atmosphere of protest and state violence in Iran, the book includes a powerful sequence on Qarchak Women’s Prison before moving into meditations on exile—border crossings, absence, memory, and survival. Persian mythology, history, and scripture are reimagined within the lived experience of repression, creating a dialogue between past and present. The poems range from compressed, image-driven lines to prose-poems cataloguing memory and loss. Recurring motifs—water, blood, the body, the gaze—form a unifying thread. The voice is direct and unsentimental, yet alive with tenderness, intimacy, and hope. Taken together, the collection is both literary and historical: a record of resilience in the face of censorship, imprisonment, and forced displacement, and a testament to poetry’s role in preserving silenced lives. Availability The Ashes Beneath Our Tongues: Between Tehran and Exile is published by Non-Stop Media and is available in paperback and hardcover. Copies can be purchased on Amazon.

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