Most recent articles by Stefan Buchen
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Justice in IranPetty Criminals Sent to the Gallows
Iran has begun handing down death sentences for robbery – a crime that previously carried much less severe punishments. In socially and politically uncertain times, the regime is increasingly resorting to Draconian measures in the hope that these will serve as a deterrent, reports Stefan Buchen
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Iranian Propaganda CinemaReversed Symbolism
The Iranian regime has supported the making of a big budget propaganda film, "The Golden Collars". In it, the 2009 Iranian uprising against the regime is presented as a malicious plot initiated by foreign spies and manipulated by the West in order to destabilize the country. Stefan Buchen on a crude piece of propaganda
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US Strikes People's Mujahedin of Iran off Terror ListThe Schizophrenia of US Foreign Policy
The People's Mujahedin of Iran was one of the leading participants of the 1979 Revolution in Iran. For years the militant revolutionary organization was on the US list of terrorist organizations. Now the ban is suddenly lifted. Stephan Buchen on a bizarre episode of US Foreign Policy
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Alliance between the PKK and the Assad RegimeA Political Sect on the Wrong Track
Just as the Assad regime is foundering, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, PKK, is proving to be its loyal henchman. In this essay, Stefan Buchen writes that PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan made a deal with the Syrian regime back in the days of Hafez al-Assad
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The Shia-Sunni ConflictThe Most Deadly Religious War of our Time
Preachers like the Sunni legal scholar Yusuf Al-Qaradawi or the Shia Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati are propagating sectarian hate and exacerbating the divide between Islam's two major denominations. In this essay, Stefan Buchen explains how the religious war they have helped to unleash within Islam is having a catastrophic effect on the Greater Middle East
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The Iranian Writer Amir Hassan CheheltanThe Loyal Dissident
Amir Hassan Cheheltan is one of a group of internationally known Iranian artists who have no intention of turning their backs on their country, and who will not allow themselves to be sidelined or frozen out by the regime. Stefan Buchen met him in Berlin
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Gaddafi's LibyaAn All-time Low
With support for him on the wane in Libya, Muammar Gaddafi sees the division of his country as his best chance of holding on to power – cost his people what it may. An analysis from Tripoli by Stefan Buchen