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Michael Petrou

Senior writer Michael Petrou has covered conflict across the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia. He is the author of ’Renegades: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War’, which was shortlisted for the Ottawa Book Award, and ’Is This Your First War? Travels Through the Post-9/11 Islamic World’, which won it. He has a DPhil from the University of Oxford.

Losing faith in Turkey

Turkey is a country for which I’ve long had much affection, and, until recently, hope. I’ve traveled from one end of the...

What I’m reading

I spent much of October and November 2001 in northeastern Afghanistan, in the company of the Northern Alliance, the Afghan army...

The Responsibility to Prevent Coalition’s report and petition on Iran

can be read in its entirety here .

In Defence of Caspian Makan

Caspian Makan, fiancé of the murdered Iranian protester Neda Agha-Soltan , has been the target of a lot of criticism and outright...

Meet one of Afghanistan’s most influential women

Fatima Gailani says "foreign troops should leave Afghanistan—but not yet"

Haunted by Satanic verses

The Kurdish translator of Salman Rushdie’s infamous book is under attack

A murder seen by millions, and a fiancé fighting for justice

Now a refugee in Toronto, Caspian Makan is intent on seeing the overthrow of the Iranian regime

Update on Rights and Democracy Access-to-Information Request

Last November, I made an access-to-information request to the Privy Council Office asking to see a performance evaluation report...

America’s more friendly face

Obama has reached out to hostile nations and criticized Israel. Is his soft diplomacy really working?

Iran is very concerned about Palestinian refugees; Afghans, not so much

Afghan refugees in Iran are forced to slap themselves and each other while promising never to come back.