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The Widening Circle
Podcast Ask an Iranian exile why a mosque in Hamburg should be closed and you may be told about Evin prison. The chain feels unbreakable from the inside. The state that jailed my cousin calls itself Islamic; Islam is therefore the thing that jailed my cousin; anything Islamic anywhere is therefore the enemy. Each step… — read more
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No Licence for Slander
Podcast On the difference between criticism and abuse, and what the Iranian diaspora has done with it It sounds like an obvious thing to say, and it is not. Telling criticism apart from cynicism takes training. It takes education. It takes a degree of self-discipline that nobody is born with and few of us are… — read more
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A List Is Not a Law
Podcast On the hundred names compiled in Tehran, the accusation waiting at the other end of the flight, and the guarantee neither side is offering On Thursday morning Mohsen Namjoo put out a video saying that by the time anyone watched it he would either be in the air or already on the ground in… — read more
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Two Kinds of Certainty
Podcast On the seventy-third anniversary of the 1953 coup, a reflection on the arrogance that ended Mohammad Mossadegh’s government, and the different arrogance that must not be allowed to replace it. Seventy-three years ago today, tanks reached the prime minister’s residence in Tehran and put an end to the government of Mohammad Mossadegh. The anniversary… — read more
