Kourosh Ziabari Journalist Profile

Articles

How foreign journalists distort Iran

Jan 9, 2025 | unherd.com | Kourosh Ziabari

Cecilia SalaFreedom of speechIranJournalismPoliticsrestofworldTehran It doesn’t make much difference if it was hostage diplomacy or old-school press trampling — or, as now seems clear, the tit-for-tat response to the detention of an Iranian in Italy. He, it turns out, was accused of supplying drone technology that killed US troops.
No, the compulsory hijab hasn’t made Iranian women safer

Jan 8, 2025 | lowyinstitute.org | Kourosh Ziabari

The use of force to implement a religious dress code is a legacy that the Islamic Republic has preserved with varying degrees of success since 1979. The late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a helicopter crash last year, wasn’t the politician to introduce the morality police or roll out the hijab rules. But if there’s one thing he accomplished during his incomplete tenure, it is the unprecedented polarisation of the Iranian society around this cultural fissure.
How Should the Western Press Cover Iran?

Jan 3, 2025 | theamericanconservative.com | Kourosh Ziabari

Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program Login Foreign Affairs How Should the Western Press Cover Iran? The detention of an Italian journalist in Tehran raises questions of how to report from the Islamic Republic. The detention of the renowned Italian journalist Cecilia Sala while reporting from Tehran has reignited a longstanding debate on the dismal state of press freedom in Iran.
The Legacy of the ‘Axis of Evil’

Dec 20, 2024 | theamericanconservative.com | Kourosh Ziabari

Politics The Legacy of the ‘Axis of Evil’ One speech permanently influenced American diplomacy—and not for the better. On January 29, 2002, former President George W. Bush delivered the first State of the Union speech after the 9/11 attacks. He listed three countries that he said were involved in the most nefarious activities destabilizing the world by sponsoring terror and threatening America: North Korea, Iran, and Iraq.
Hans Blix: The arms control Einstein who turned 96 this year

Dec 5, 2024 | lowyinstitute.org | Kourosh Ziabari

If there are names in international diplomacy that have become synonymous with statesmanship and conflict resolution, Hans Blix is certainly one of them. The former director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) turned 96 in June, and although his life in retirement means he no longer plays an active role in nuclear non-proliferation and arms control, his legacy has left an indelible mark on the institutions where he served, elevating the causes for which he fought.
Zelenskyy’s Backing of Iran Sanctions May Have Cost Iranian People’s Solidarity

Nov 24, 2024 | truthout.org | Kourosh Ziabari

Of the many countries of the Global South that maintain cordial ties with Russia, Iran happens to be one of the few outliers where the public doesn’t hold predominantly positive views of the Eurasian heavyweight. Anti-Russia sentiments have snowballed in Iran since the start of the Ukraine war, and as reflected in an October 2022 Cambridge University study, unfavorable perceptions of Russia are more widespread in Iran than in Bulgaria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, North Macedonia or Armenia.
Call it by its name

Oct 22, 2024 | ips-journal.eu | Kourosh Ziabari

Media coverage of the Middle East often involves eccentricities that have over time become canonised to the extent that even the critical thinkers do not question them. The use of the words ‘the Gulf’, an abstract reference to the stretch of water separating Iran from the Arabian Peninsula, is one such quirk.
Iran's expat opposition is a joke

Oct 9, 2024 | unherd.com | Kourosh Ziabari

IranOppositionPahlaviPersiaPoliticsrowShah On 28 June, the people of London were greeted by an unusual sight. That Friday, not far from the Iranian embassy, a woman filmed herself chasing an old lady across the street.
Iranians Don’t Want a War With Israel

Sep 15, 2024 | thecairoreview.com | Kourosh Ziabari

The current state of heightened tensions in the Middle East is not the first time in recent memory that Iran finds itself on the precipice of an all-out military conflict. Threats of an imminent invasion or coordinated attacks on its nuclear facilities originating from its chief adversaries Israel and the United States have been consistent in the past twenty years, wielded in tandem with speculations about the timing of a hypothetical blitzkrieg.
What Iran gained from the Columbia University crackdowns

Sep 13, 2024 | ips-journal.eu | Kourosh Ziabari

It was the afternoon of 18 April. The New York Police Department officers descended on the Columbia University campus to dismantle the solidarity encampment set up by students opposing the ongoing war in Gaza. The encampment and sweeping pro-Palestine protests preceding it had remained a sticking point as the embattled administration was on a quest for solutions. Now, the new academic year has begun, and intermittent protests have been gestating around campus.