HARDtalk

Stephen Sackur speaks to Iran’s former vice president for women and family affairs, Masoumeh Ebtekar. Despite state repression, many Iranian women are still confronting restrictive laws which they label ‘gender apartheid’. Amid social and economic unrest, is today’s Iranian leadership in danger of losing its grip?

This month marks 50 years since 21 people were killed by the IRA in the Birmingham pub bombings. Six men, ‘The Birmingham Six’, were imprisoned for 16 years for murderous bomb attacks which they did not commit. In 2011, Stephen Sackur spoke to one of those men, Paddy Hill. He had been a free man for 20 years, but had he managed to rebuild his life?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Steve McQueen, the Oscar-winning director of films including 12 Years a Slave and Widows. Much of his work has portrayed racial injustice, and his latest film, Blitz, tells the story of a black boy caught up in war-torn London in 1940. His images are often difficult to bear - how important is it not to look away?Image: Steve McQueen (Credit: Andy Rain/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Stephen Sackur speaks to British-Palestinian filmmaker Farah Nabulsi. Her latest film, The Teacher, is set in the West Bank and invites audiences to see and feel the Palestinian experience in intimate, human and emotional detail; but is that possible in the post-October 7th climate of war?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Jamaica's minister of tourism, Edmund Bartlett. While the island nation projects itself to the world as a Caribbean success story, its reputation is being tarnished by violent crime, drugs and gang warfare. What will it take to make Jamaica more secure?

Allan Little speaks to the Trinidadian human rights activist Jason Jones. He is campaigning to legalise consensual sex for homosexuals on his native island, and hopes that the case will have repercussions for similar laws in other countries. But will it be enough to change cultural attitudes?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Russia’s ambassador in London, Andrei Kelin. Thanks to the war in Ukraine and allegations of Russian hybrid warfare in Europe and beyond, diplomatic relations between Moscow and the West are poisonous. Is Vladimir Putin right to think he’s reshaping geopolitics?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Fred Fleitz, a national security official in Donald Trump’s first administration, tipped for a new foreign policy role if Trump returns to power. If Vice President Kamala Harris represents foreign policy continuity, what would the world get from Trump 2.0?

Stephen Sackur talks to Diane Foley, whose son James was kidnapped by the Islamic State group and murdered in 2014. She’s spent a decade coming to terms with that and campaigning to get other detained Americans home.

Stephen Sackur is in Washington DC to speak to Democratic Party Senator Chris Murphy. In the final days of an eye-wateringly close presidential election campaign, how can Vice President Kamala Harris convince Americans that she and the Democrats stand for change rather than business as usual?

Stephen Sackur is in Washington DC to speak to Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton. With the election looming, Bolton calls his former boss a danger to America. But he won’t back Kamala Harris either. Is America too divided to offer global leadership?

Stephen Sackur speaks to stand-up comedian, and broadcaster Frank Skinner, who also happens to be a writer on poetry, religion and much more. Football and sex were, and are, the staples of much of his humour, but he’s never been a one-trick pony. What unites his many facets?

Stephen Sackur speaks to former Iranian nuclear negotiator Seyed Hossein Mousavian. Now in exile in the US, he is an advocate for dialogue between Iran and the West. With Israel poised to strike, having already delivered severe blows to Tehran, how vulnerable is Iran?

Stephen Sackur speaks to the Iranian-Danish film director Ali Abbasi. His new movie The Apprentice, about Donald Trump’s early years in business, has enraged team Trump. He’s also made powerful enemies inside Iran. Is censorship a growing cross-cultural problem?

Stephen Sackur speaks to the former MEP Marietje Schaake, who is now a cyber expert at Stanford University. Her book, The Tech Coup, suggests the world’s failure to properly regulate digital technology threatens individual rights and democratic freedom worldwide. Is it too late to change course?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Israel’s ambassador at the UN, Danny Danon. Israel is now fighting a multi-front war, intent on delivering its enemies in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran a series of crushing blows. But can force alone deliver Israel the security it craves?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Tamir Pardo, former director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. He was appointed by Benjamin Netanyahu but now he’s a fierce critic of the Israeli Prime Minister. When he says the greatest threat to Israel’s future comes from within, what does he mean?

Allan Little speaks to Kim Aris, the son of the ousted civilian leader of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi. Now a political prisoner approaching the age of 80 and in declining health, what is her fate and that of the country she left her family to serve?

Mishal Husain speaks to Imaan Mazari-Hazir, a lawyer in Pakistan whose passion for human rights began early in her legal studies. She has become well known in her home country for defending people’s rights against the state – taking on difficult cases of abduction and forced disappearance, and speaking out against the country's powerful military. She has herself faced arrest, and now charges under anti-terror laws. Amid political and economic turmoil, is the rule of law in Pakistan in crisis?

Stephen Sackur speaks to the de-facto leader of the Venezuelan opposition, María Corina Machado. Two months after an election which she says delivered a humiliating defeat to the country's authoritarian leader President Nicolás Maduro, he’s clinging on to power and his regime is clamping down on dissent. Have hopes for change again been thwarted in Venezuela?