One of those widely-celebrated festivals I had never heard of, I was alerted to Noruz (or Nowruz) by, of all things, a point of order raised in the House of Commons on the first of this month. Marking the start of the Zoroastrian new year, dedicated to fire, and also having been adopted by the founder of the Bahá'í faith as the start of their new year, it is one of the great survivors of the Islamic takeover of Persia/Iran.
[Later] The festival is being used to demonstrate against the unjust detention of three women, including that of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, imprisoned in Iran since April 2016. Mrs Ratcliffe has UK as well as Iranian citizenship.
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