Midden-Oosten

Interview

Turkey and the perfect storm in the Middle East

1 September 2016 -

Turkey redraws the geopolitical maps of the Middle East by working together with Russia and Iran, while relations with the NATO-allies are at their lowest point. What is the meaning of Turkey’s tanks and combat aircrafts in Syria? Amanda Paul, expert in Turkish, Russian and European external policies, comments.

Interview

Lena Slachmuijlder: ‘Extremists Have The Right To Pursue Their Ideals, But Not With Violence’

31 August 2016 -

Radicalization has become so closely tied to the use of violence against citizens, that each call to radical change sounds criminal. The American researcher and activist Lena Slachmuijlder advocates the respect extreme ideals – on the condition that they are pursued without violence.

Analysis

100 years of consciously planned division in the Middle East

14 July 2016 -

On May 16th, it was exactly one hundred years ago that a British and a French diplomat drew the borders of the contemporary Middle East and, in doing so, were responsible for many of the conflicts of the past century. Bruno de Cordier and Tom Kenis weigh the importance of Sykes-Picot.

Interview

Karima Bennoune: “Daesh produces destruction pornography”

24 June 2016 -

It becomes clearer by the day: IS (Daesh) tries to provoke a war between ‘the West’ and ‘Islam’. And they make it a cultural war. MO* talked about cultural rights and identities in times of terrorism with Karime Bennoune, UN-Special Rapporteur for Cultural Rights.

Report

Keeping the Death Count in Syria

4 April 2016 -

Since the start of the Syrian Revolution, Syrian activists, armed with camera’s, pencils and paper, count the death, map tortures and other human rights violations. Journalist Ignacio Delgado spoke with some of them, the so called dead counters.

Report

Testimony of a Syrian metalhead with a camera and a stick

1 April 2016 -

Syrian, alawite, opposition, war photographer, war wounded. Artino is all, and more. This is his story how he lived the Syrian revolution till now.

Report

Behind the barricades in Nusaybin

21 March 2016 -

Nusaybin is likely to be the next battlefield in the struggle between the Turkish army and Kurdish militants. In the border town, plenty of digging to erect new barricades is going on in the neighbourhoods that have declared themselves autonomous. Because with the beginning of military operations in the neighbouring town of Idil, a confrontation&nb ...

Report

‘The old heart of Kurdistan is bleeding to death’

21 March 2016 -

Since August last year, the violence in the Kurdish region of southeastern Turkey flared up again. Kurdish youth affiliated with the PKK engaged in battle with the state police and army. The fights struck Sur, the historic centre of Diyarbakir, under siege since December.

Interview

Syrian Journalist Rami Jarrah: ‘The Russians Are The Airforce Of ISIS’

25 February 2016 -

The award-winning Syrian journalist Rami Jarrah fled Syria four years ago, but over the last few months he has returned several times to report on the situation in his country. Last week he was arrested in Turkey but he has now been released. Pieter Stockmans interviewed him one week before he was arrested.

Report

The silent grief of the Jezidi women

15 February 2016 -

Over the past year thousands of Jezidi women were made a slave and raped by Islamic State (IS) fighters. Some of them got away. They returned to Northern Iraq: ill, broken and severely traumatised.

Video

Video interview Robert Fisk: ‘Bombing people to solve a problem has never worked’

4 December 2015 -

Over a thousand people attended a lecture organized by MO* earlier this month. Gie Goris, editor-in-chief, sat down with Robert Fisk beforehand and talked about Syria, the importance of history and the numerous contradictions in the Middle East. 'Unless we see Syria as a product of its past as well as its present, we will come up with crazed ideas ...

Daniel Horacio Agostini (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Report

‘Human traffickers never keep their word’

1 May 2015 -

It took the Surian refugee Omar not less than even months and almost 7000 euros to travel from Turkey to Austria. In a coffee shop in the Austrian city of Linz, MO* listened to his shocking testimony.