Amelia Smith – Middle East Monitor

Amelia Smith seen at Middle East Monitor's 'Jerusalem: Legalising the Occupation' conference in London, UK on 3 March, 2018 [Jehan Alfarra/Middle East Monitor]

Amelia Smith

Amelia Smith is a writer and journalist based in London who has reported from across the Middle East and North Africa. In 2016 Amelia was a finalist at the Write Stuff writing competition at the London Book Fair. Her first book, “The Arab Spring Five Years On”, was published in 2016 and brings together a collection of authors who analyse the protests and their aftermath half a decade after they flared in the region.

December 14, 2018 Amelia Smith
Egypt journalist detained in public loo, ‘beaten’ by police at Edinburgh Airport
At 4pm on Thursday 14 December Egyptian journalist AbdulRahman Ezz was prevented from boarding his flight to France from Edinburgh Airport where he intended to cover the yellow vest...
Published in: Africa, Egypt, Europe & Russia, France, Opinion, UK
December 13, 2018 Amelia Smith
Turner Prize entry refutes Israel claim Umm Hiran killing was terror attack
In the early hours of 18 January 2017 Keren Manor was filming a raid on the unrecognised Bedouin village of Umm Al-Hiran in the Naqab desert, just metres away...
Published in: Article, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine
November 30, 2018 Amelia Smith
19-year-old Brit who snapped Egypt from plane window arrested for spying
Last week, as the plane carrying 19-year-old Muhammed AbdelKasem and his friend descended into Borg El Arab Airport in Alexandria, Muhammed took out his phone, leaned towards the window...
Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Europe & Russia, Opinion, UK
November 23, 2018 Amelia Smith
‘I know where her father is,’ said manager of Egypt nursery before expelling two-year-old daughter of political prisoner
On Wednesday afternoon the nursery where Rana Greash’s daughter was enrolled called her and invited her for a meeting. “My partner knows who Laila’s father is,” said the manager...
Published in: Africa, Egypt, Interviews
November 13, 2018 Amelia Smith
Former Sinai MP: ‘Mubarak was a treasure to Israel. Sisi is much more than that’
In 2014, fresh from the coup they led against the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the government offered Yehya Okail the position of deputy mayor of North Sinai. He wasn’t...
Published in: Africa, Egypt, Interviews, Israel, Middle East, Palestine
November 10, 2018 Amelia Smith
In the land of my birth: A Palestinian boyhood
Reja-e Busailah has lost two dear parts of himself over the course of his lifetime: his sight and his homeland. In his autobiography, “In the land of my birth:...
Published in: Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Review - Books, Reviews
October 29, 2018 Amelia Smith
As benefactors to the worst dictators in the Middle East we have a unique role to play in Khashoggi’s case
One image that resonates in the aftermath of Jamal Khashoggi’s death is of the man standing outside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul wearing a blue suit jacket and clasping...
Published in: Africa, Article, Asia & Americas, Egypt, Europe & Russia, Middle East, Opinion, Saudi Arabia, UK, US, Yemen
October 23, 2018 Amelia Smith
P is for Palestine: A Palestine Alphabet Book
Unlike the alphabet books which currently saturate the children’s book market in the UK, where A is for apple and B is for ball, “P is for Palestine” offers...
Published in: Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Review - Books, Reviews
October 4, 2018 Amelia Smith
When we get rid of the Tories, life might just become better in the Middle East
Since Jeremy Corbyn became the Labour Party leader through a landslide victory in 2015 the Tories, backed by certain elements of the British press, have tried to convince the...
Published in: Africa, Article, Europe & Russia, Libya, Middle East, Opinion, Saudi Arabia, UK, Yemen
September 10, 2018 Amelia Smith
Persecuted at home, denied asylum in South Korea: the Egyptians with nowhere to go
In December 2012 Abdelrahman Zaid became one of the thousands of civilians to be incarcerated in Mubarak’s sweep to end the Arab Spring. At the time of his arrest...
Published in: Africa, Asia & Americas, Egypt, International Organisations, Interviews, Middle East, South Korea, Syria, UN, US, Yemen
August 24, 2018 Amelia Smith
The British government has no British values
Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor is currently pushing for the execution of human rights campaigner Israa Al-Ghomgham. As Israa waits to learn her fate, the rest of the world looks...
Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, International Organisations, Middle East, Opinion, Saudi Arabia, UN, US, Yemen
August 17, 2018 Amelia Smith
Mystery shrouds extradition of Egypt imam from Spain
On 1 June Spanish police injected Dr. Alaa Mohamed Said with anesthetic, beat him and bundled him onto a plane bound for Egypt. For two days his wife Iman,...
Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Europe & Russia, Opinion, Spain
August 14, 2018 Amelia Smith
Five years on from Rabaa Sisi’s massacre continues in North Sinai
Rabaa represents the failed hope of Egyptian democracy and it set a precedent for the despicable brutality of a regime towards its own citizens.
Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Opinion, Videos & Photo Stories
July 6, 2018 Amelia Smith
Refusing to open borders, separating parents and children. We have truly lost our humanity
For politicians across the world, refugees are not human beings any more, they are rubbish to be disposed.
Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Middle East, Opinion, Syria, UK, US, Videos & Photo Stories
June 25, 2018 Amelia Smith
At the World Cup 2018, regional rivalries play out on the pitch
Last week, not even Egypt’s fourth pyramid Mohammad Salah could save the Pharaoh’s from their 3-1 defeat against Russia. A further loss against Uruguay secured the Egyptian team seats...
Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Europe & Russia, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UK
June 22, 2018 Amelia Smith
In London, theatre is helping four young refugees process trauma
The first time Talal Hasan met Omar Almahel they slept side by side on a piece of cardboard at a train station in Brussels. Not long after this the...
Published in: Africa, Chad, Europe & Russia, Interviews, Israel, Libya, Middle East, Palestine, Syria, UK
June 1, 2018 Amelia Smith
Palestine has a wealth of talented filmmakers, but no cinema industry to showcase them
Haifa Independent Film Festival prides itself on being independent from the Israeli government and is not supported by any organisation or institute
Published in: Blog, Blogs - Politics, Europe & Russia, France, Germany, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, Videos & Photo Stories
May 18, 2018 Amelia Smith
It took 116 dead Palestinians for Egypt to ease its siege on Gaza for a month
Yesterday Egyptian military strongman Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi announced on Twitter that the Rafah border crossing to Gaza would remain open throughout the entire month of Ramadan. Al-Sisi’s tweet came...
Published in: Africa, Article, Asia & Americas, Egypt, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, US
May 10, 2018 Amelia Smith
Welcome to Sinai, where soldiers shoot children then boast on Facebook
Even by the standards of Egypt’s dirty war the video circulating this week of a young boy pleading for his mother moments before he was shot in central Sinai...
Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Opinion
May 3, 2018 Amelia Smith
Yusuf Qaradawi’s granddaughter: ‘It never crossed our mind they would detain my mother because of my grandfather’
Amelia Smith interviews Aayah Khalaf, the daughter of Ola Al-Qaradawi and Hosam Khalaf who have been detained for nearly a year in Egypt. Ola is the daughter of the exiled Egyptian scholar Yusuf Al-Qaradawi.
Published in: Africa, Asia & Americas, Egypt, Interviews, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, UAE, US
April 25, 2018 Amelia Smith
The UK government steals billions from the poor to fund illegal wars in the Middle East
You don’t have to look far to find evidence of the abject failures of the current Tory government, they are plastered over every media outlet – the Windrush scandal, Brexit...
Published in: Article, Europe & Russia, Iraq, Middle East, Opinion, Syria, UK
April 21, 2018 Amelia Smith
‘Syrians are not cockroaches to be exterminated’
Amelia Smith interviews Hammam Yousef, a Syrian activist who co-founded the Syrian Non-Violence Movement during the 2011 uprising.
Published in: Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, Interviews, Middle East, Russia, Syria, US
April 11, 2018 Amelia Smith
World leaders shed a tear for Syrian children, but for Gaza it’s business as usual
In the aftermath of the chemical weapons assault that suffocated to death over 80 men, women and children in the town of Douma, eastern Ghouta, this weekend British Prime...
Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, International Organisations, Iraq, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, UK, UN, US, Yemen
March 23, 2018 Amelia Smith
In Egypt the British trade millions of dollars for human rights
In 2016 UK investments in Egypt topped $30 billion. Instead of using their influence to force Egypt to behave, the UK has awarded Sisi with $500,000 of investment for every Egyptian locked up for pro-democracy protests.
Published in: Africa, Egypt, Publications, Reports
March 8, 2018 Amelia Smith
Here come the next generation of female, Middle East activists
On the 15 December 2017 Israeli soldiers raided Ahed Tamimi’s home and shot her cousin in the head at close range shattering his skull. Ahed and her cousin ran...
Published in: Article, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine
February 23, 2018 Amelia Smith
‘The regime is killing people and the whole world is watching’
Mohamed Adel has been inside his office, a basement below a building in Douma in Eastern Ghouta, for four days now. Yesterday at midnight he decided to risk the...
Published in: Europe & Russia, International Organisations, Interviews, Middle East, Russia, Syria, UN
February 6, 2018 Amelia Smith
Doria Shafiq won the vote for Egyptian women, and kicked the Brits out
“To know, to be able, to want and to dare,” Doria Shafiq Britain today is celebrating the centenary of the Representation of the People Act, passed on 6 February...
Published in: Africa, Algeria, Article, Egypt, Europe & Russia, Opinion, UK
January 15, 2018 Amelia Smith
‘As a Palestinian on the stage I feel I’m fighting, I’m resisting’
Palestinian actor and director Momin Swaitat looks at life under occupation and the contemporary refugee experience in his latest work 'Alien Land'
Published in: Europe & Russia, Interviews, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, UK, Videos & Photo Stories
December 20, 2017 Amelia Smith
1,000 days of Saudi war on Yemen, backed by the UK
This week marks 1,000 days since the Saudi-led coalition launched a bombing campaign in Yemen. What followed was the world’s worst cholera epidemic and horrific human rights abuses on...
Published in: Middle East, Opinion, Saudi Arabia, Yemen
December 7, 2017 Amelia Smith
The UK supported Saleh and every other Middle East tragedy
Shortly after photos of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, wrapped in a red blanket bearing a fatal head wound, were circulated on Twitter, a shot of him flanked...
Published in: Africa, Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, Libya, Middle East, Opinion, UK, US, Yemen
November 25, 2017 Amelia Smith
‘The Syrian conflict is a very big money machine’
Manaf Halbouni tells me that the price of tomatoes in Syria has increased 80 fold since the start of the conflict: “When I left Syria you used to pay...
Published in: Europe & Russia, Germany, Interviews, Middle East, Syria
November 15, 2017 Amelia Smith
Code Name: Butterfly
Butterfly is not your average schoolgirl; at least not if you went to school in the UK. One of her best friends calls herself Dalal Mughrabi after the female...
Published in: Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Review - Books, Reviews