The Big Picture with Mohamed Hassan

Are Western leaders sleepwalking into a disaster in the Middle East? As regional tensions surge amid Israel’s devastating war in Gaza, its allies in the US and Europe have refused calls to de-escalate the conflict and prevent the staggering toll on human life from spiralling further.  Western countries vowed to stand by Israel as it responds to the deadly October 7 attack by Hamas, with many invok...

On Wednesday, the world woke up to newspapers plastered with a horrific headline about ‘40 Israeli babies decapitated by Hamas’.  But was the story true? We dig into the dizzying, circular debate around the darkest story of an already devastating week and ask whether journalists fulfilled their duty to fact-check it, or instead helped Israel justify its policy of ‘collective punishment’ in Gaza. W...

The history of Palestinian liberation movements is paved with setbacks, betrayals and bitter rivalries. What began as an attempt to unify the resistance against Israeli occupation has over time been undermined by regional and global political interests, ideological differences and disagreements over the justification, and use, of guerilla tactics. Today the question of who represents Palestinian i...

What is the fate of Imran Khan? After more than a year of political turmoil following his ousting, the embattled former Pakistani leader is in prison, fighting dozens of charges from corruption to sedition to selling state secrets. He’s also been barred from taking part in the country’s upcoming elections, and his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, is slowly being dismantled. Senior leaders have bee...

Ireland’s fight for independence from British rule has defined how it sees itself in the world - as a liberated people compelled to fight against oppression everywhere. This sentiment formed its proud stance of ‘neutrality’, which saw it refuse to engage in World War II, and defines its strong and vocal support for the fight against Apartheid - first in South Africa, and today in Palestine. But un...

How far would you go to protect a client? When Muhammad Rabbani, a human rights advocate, was stopped and interrogated on his way back to the UK after working with a high profile client, it was an experience he was familiar with.  As a Muslim and an activist, he'd been stopped at the airport many times before. This time however, when he refused to give up the passwords to his personal devices...

Has the Labour Party turned its back on the Left? Following the disastrous election loss to Boris Johnson in 2019, the party emerged from the ashes promising to shed itself of its past and the image of one man - Jeremy Corbyn. His successor Sir Keir Starmer has  instead defined his leadership directly in opposition to Corbyn, leaning towards the centrist ideals of another former leader, Tony Blair...

How do you challenge the might of the Chinese state? For decades, the Uyghur Muslims have fought to preserve their culture, their language and their religion in the face of China’s rising power and control. Since 2013, sweeping crackdowns have turned the once-autonomous region which calls itself ‘East Turkestan’ into a heavily militarised zone, where high tech surveillance systems were installed a...

Can we trust the AI to watch over us? Artificial intelligence and machine learning technology have entered into a new era, advancing at a rate none of us can comprehend or keep up with.  Tech companies, governments and police forces are racing to own and turn these advances into cutting edge security and mass surveillance systems, while legislators and human rights voices desperately try to build...

For thousands of years, Jewish communities lived and thrived in the Arab world, and were integral to shaping its history, culture and economy. But when Israel was established, more than 260,000 Arab-Jews fled their homes, and their history has largely been forgotten. So what happened in the 1950s that forced the vast majority of them to leave? This week on The Big Picture podcast, we sit down with...

Putin, NATO and the threat of nuclear war - has the world entered a new reality? More than a year and a half ago, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shocked the world, destabilising energy markets, food security and diplomacy.  But attempts by the US to rally the world behind Ukraine have failed, with many former allies choosing instead to sit on the sidelines and bide their time - signalling a fissure...

What happens when a dictator uses drug trafficking as a tool of diplomacy? The psychoactive drug known as Captagon has exploded across the Middle East and Europe, leading many countries to clasify it as an ‘epidemic’. The highly-addictive pill used to be made in Turkey and Latin America, but that slowly changed after the Syrian Civil War.  Today, 80% of the global supplies come from Syria, and man...

Could the BDS movement soon become illegal in the UK? Under a new bill, the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill, boycotting foreign countries will become illegal for public bodies, which would include councils, unions and student organisations. The law specifically protects Israel from being targetted, and bars public bodies from even voicing support for pro-Palestinian BDS...

Are we witnessing the beginning of a new Palestinian uprising? The Israeli raid on Jenin this week marked a sudden escalation of violence in an increasingly tense West Bank, with calls for armed insurrections in several Palestinian cities. 12 people, including three children, died in Jenin, adding to the toll of more than 100 Palestinians that have been killed since 2022. Israel’s far-right govern...

On the frontlines of technological leaps are often people in power - governments, police, intelligence agencies and militaries - trying to use new research to advance the ways in which they operate. But what happens when these powers aren’t used for good? Who can keep the powerful in check in a global digital age? In this episode of The Big Picture, we sit down with architect and investigator Eyal...

Kurdish political groups and militias have been fighting for independence for more than a century, pitting them against the governments of four countries: Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq.  These groups rallied around the idea of a ‘Greater Kurdistan’, though critics say this romanticised homeland never really existed and that modern Kurds should accept their place in their adopted nation-states. In t...

Do Muslims have a place in the so-called ‘cultre war’? In many Western countries, a battle has waged between progressives and conservatives jostling in the political sphere and online. Many young Muslims have found themselves embroiled in these same conversations on gender, sexuality and tradition, creating a schism that threatens to divide their communities. In this episode of The Big Picture, we...

Four years after the Christchurch terror attacks, Aya al-Umari is fighting to change her brother’s story from ‘victim’ to ‘hero’.Hussein al-Umari was killed on 15 March in an act of white supremacy that claimed the lives of 51 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand.  Despite local and international attention shifting elsewhere, the survivors and families at the centre of the attacks continue to struggl...

After nearly four years of delay, the independent review into the UK’s counter-terror programme ‘Prevent’ has been published. The highly controversial strategy has been slammed by Muslim groups for creating an environment of fear and suspicion around ordinary citizens, who have been questioned in their workplaces, schools and medical facilities as a result. Instead, the review by William Showcross...

Andrew Tate’s sudden and meteoric rise as a men’s rights influencer has captivated the attention of young men all over the world and shocked many others, including teachers and parents, about why their children are drawn in by his mix of misogyny and self-help guruisms. Despite his arrest on sex trafficking charges by Romanian authorities, his loyal followers continue to stand by him, including a...

Syrian activist, revolutionary and filmmaker Waad al-Kateab gave birth to her daughter Sama under siege in Aleppo, sheltering in a makeshift hospital while Bashar al-Assad’s forces bombed the city around them. As a new mother, she decided to pick up her camera and document what she imagined were her last moments alive. Three years after her landmark documentary For Sama toured the world, al-Kateab...

After four years of political turmoil, Israel's far-right Zionist agitators have emerged victorious, seeking to expel Palestinians, implement Jewish loyalty laws and tear up the peace process once and for all. With the help of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have dominated Israeli politics and are set to take over the most powerful positions in governme...

In our first in a series of long-form interviews with great minds, we speak with human rights advocate Dr Kat Eghdamian on why the fight for women's liberation in Iran is not about religion but control. Dr Eghdamian explains how the death of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman, inspired a nationwide movement built on Kurdish traditions and slogans and what we can learn from the young people putting...