Qantara.de - Dialog mit der islamischen Welt

Joobin Bekhrad is the founder and editor of "Reorient", a well-known magazine for Middle Eastern arts and culture. Melanie Christina Mohr spoke to the author about art in Iran, rock ʹnʹ roll and his first novella More

Forty years after the start of the Islamic Revolution, Iran is once again convulsed with protests. Many of the economic problems facing the country today resemble those in the 1970s, and the regime appears to be scarcely less repressive and ossified than it was back then. Nevertheless, the current protests are unlikely to be the beginning of a new revolution, says Ulrich von SchwerinMore

German-Iranian director Ali Soozandeh says that he made the film "Tehran Taboo" in order to "break the silence". In doing so, however, he has sketched a portrait of Iran that is almost unbearable, especially for the critical viewer with a knowledge of Iran, says Massoud Schirazi More

Every year the Iranian artist Parastou Forouhar holds a ceremony in Tehran to commemorate her parents′ murder by the regime. Accused of propaganda against the system, she′s now on trial herself – for artwork that the regime considers "insults the sacred". Interview by Catrin Lorch More

The image of Ebrahim Yazdi, who passed away on 27 August aged 86, fittingly portrays the paradoxes of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Those involved in Tehran′s political scene of the last twenty years knew him as the opposition, an ′Islamic liberal′ and supporter of democratic reforms. By Marina FortiMore

After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Islamic regime began to force women to adopt Islamic dress. Resistance to the rule has never ceased, though it has changed. And suddenly compulsory veiling in the theocracy no longer seems to be on solid ground. An abridged version of the original article by Nasrin BassiriMore

The Middle East is fraught with bitter national and sectarian conflicts that realistically can only be solved by compromise. Rather than another round of demonisation, what the region needs, argues Jeffrey Sachs, is an era of diplomacy that focuses on normalising relations More