Amelia Smith – Middle East Monitor

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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.

September 16, 2021 | Amelia Smith

The Man Who Sold His Skin: How one Syrian refugee became a piece of art to reach Europe

In parts 'The Man Who Sold His Skin' requires a little imagination, but this romance meets drama meets satire is at the same time an urgent revisiting of the refugee crisis

Published in: Belgium, Europe & Russia, Lebanon, Middle East, Review - Films & Documentaries, Reviews, Syria, Videos & Photo Stories
September 11, 2021 | Amelia Smith

'My gun is my body', says Syrian dancer Nidal Abdo

For a Palestinian-Syrian-Ukrainian who grew up in the largest refugee camp in Syria, becoming a dancer doesn't strike me as the most obvious career choice. Yet of the three...

Published in: Europe & Russia, France, Interviews, Lebanon, Middle East, Palestine, Syria, Ukraine
September 3, 2021 | Amelia Smith

In Egypt it is a crime to read books

Because it has no real popular support, for any dictatorship to survive censorship is central to their modus operandi. True to form, since the military take-over of power in...

Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Opinion
August 26, 2021 | Amelia Smith

Afghanistan is the latest example the Tories are incompetent

The Conservative Party is embroiled in a new scandal with their handling of the crisis in Afghanistan at the eye of the storm, demonstrating that once again they are...

Published in: Afghanistan, Article, Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, Opinion, UK
August 12, 2021 | Amelia Smith

Egypt's air strikes on Sinai good timing for $1.3bn US military aid package

On Tuesday Egyptian warplanes launched airstrikes on North Sinai in response to the death of a senior army brigadier who was killed after Wilayat Sinai targeted his vehicle. Local...

Published in: Africa, Article, Asia & Americas, Egypt, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, US
August 5, 2021 | Laila Ahmet | Amelia Smith

Extortionate bail and official bribery: How Egypt formalised its rashwah culture

On 1 June Abeer Hassan's brother left the house to deliver some cash to a colleague, a short trip around the block that should have taken a maximum of...

Published in: Africa, Egypt, Interviews
July 27, 2021

Tunisia: Journalists contend against Saudi, UAE bots to warn against crushing hard won civil liberties

On Sunday Tunisia's President, Kais Saeid assumed emergency powers to sack the prime minister, suspend parliament and the immunity of parliamentarians, and assume authority of the government. The birthplace...

Published in: Africa, Egypt, Middle East, News, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Twitter Trends, UAE
July 6, 2021

Egypt and Ethiopia at war, virtually, over the Renaissance Dam

Opposing Arabic hashtags "Renaissance Dam" and "fill the dam" are trending in Egypt and Ethiopia following the news that Addis Ababa has begun the second phase of filling the...

Published in: Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, News, Sudan, Twitter Trends
June 24, 2021 | Amelia Smith

Biden writes another blank cheque for Sisi

This week Abbas Kamel, Egypt's notorious intelligence chief, is visiting Washington to meet with US intelligence officials and several senators. The upcoming trip coincides with news that Egypt may...

Published in: Africa, Article, Asia & Americas, Egypt, Opinion, US
June 16, 2021 | Amelia Smith

Egypt continues execution spree, with impunity

On 15 July 2013 four men left the Rabaa sit-in, got into a car and drove away from the protests. On their way out of the square they saw...

Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Opinion
June 3, 2021 | Amelia Smith

'Most of them died whilst they were sleeping', Gaza doctor recalls the destruction

For the 11 days Israeli air strikes pummelled Gaza, Dr Khamis would try to take a two-hour nap around 8am, the only time he could catch some much needed...

Published in: Asia & Americas, Europe & Russia, Interviews, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Philippines, UK
May 19, 2021 | Amelia Smith

Egypt will never be an honest broker for Palestine until facts really change on the ground

One week into the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, at least 192 people had been killed including 58 children and the AP and Al Jazeera offices were razed to the...

Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine
May 5, 2021 | Amelia Smith

Egypt on the brink as third covid wave engulfs the country

Earlier this week, Egypt's Ministry of Health denied the news that covid cases had spiralled out of control in Sohag Governorate and reassured the public that there were enough...

Published in: Africa, Article, Asia & Americas, China, Coronavirus, Egypt, Middle East, Opinion, UAE, Videos & Photo Stories
April 23, 2021 | Laila Ahmet | Amelia Smith

How women in Egypt are defeating the government's archaic legislation

In February the Egyptian government tried to sell its draft personal status law on a clause that would see men who did not inform their first wife they were...

Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Opinion
April 2, 2021 | Amelia Smith

'Women of my generation viewed freedom fighters as similar to Guevara, Castro and Mandela'

When Sahar Khalifeh was young, her family didn't support her dream of becoming a writer. They regarded art as a sin that would ultimately destroy the family's reputation. "The...

Published in: Interviews, Middle East, Palestine
March 26, 2021 | Amelia Smith

When I spoke out about my brothers' arrest the torture stopped, says Egypt opposition member abroad

On 22 August 2020 Mona Alshazly received a devastating phone call from her mother. "They've taken everything," she told Mona, screaming and crying. "Our documentation and all of our...

Published in: Africa, Egypt, Interviews
March 5, 2021 | Amelia Smith

'Writing saved me from my demons,' says Palestinian author Huzama Habayeb

Amidst the harsh, rugged environment of Baqa'a refugee camp in Jordan a Palestinian apprentice seamstress runs her hands across rolls of velvet. Hands that speak of a decaying spirit...

Published in: Interviews, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Middle East, Palestine
February 23, 2021 | Amelia Smith | Laila Ahmet

I want to go back to my cell, says released child detainee in Egypt

On 20 February 2021 Manar Abouelnaga and her son appeared in front of Egypt's state security prosecution two years after their forcible disappearance. Al-Baraa was just three-years-old. The house...

Published in: Africa, Egypt, Interviews
February 10, 2021 | Amelia Smith

Ghada Oueiss: 'Saudi has based its rule on the suppression of women'

On a warm evening in April 2020, an image of Al Jazeera anchor Ghada Oueiss nude in a hot tub lit up the internet. It was captured in the...

Published in: Africa, Asia & Americas, Bahrain, Egypt, Europe & Russia, Interviews, Middle East, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, US
January 25, 2021 | Amelia Smith

Egypt's Arctic Spring

Demonstrators who joined the millions of people in downtown Cairo a decade ago, 25 January 2011, navigated the shifting sands of the regime's shock, conciliatory tone and anger and...

Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Opinion
January 15, 2021 | Laila Ahmet | Amelia Smith

Caught between covid and settlers: How a West Bank school is struggling to survive

Across Palestine, schools are closed to try and stem the spread of the virus, but Al-Maleh Elementary has struggled to offer remote learning, because of the lack of internet and electricity in the village.

Published in: Coronavirus, Interviews, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Videos & Photo Stories
November 11, 2020 | Amelia Smith

Against the Loveless World

The Nahr we meet some way into Susan Abdulhawa's "Against the Loveless World" is a different one we imagine to the figure who sits in an Israeli jail cuffing her own...

Published in: Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Review - Books, Reviews
October 9, 2020 | Laila Ahmet | Amelia Smith

PTSD. Anxiety. Nightmares: Life after prison for Egypt's child detainees

On 27 September, Egypt's public prosecution ordered that 79 children detained since the start of the demonstrations be released. All the children were aged between 10 and 15 and...

Published in: Africa, Egypt, Interviews, Middle East
September 29, 2020 | Amelia Smith

'I was thinking about Khashoggi,' says ex-Egypt political prisoner as consul lures him inside consulate

On Friday 25 September Amr Abn Hashad went to the Egyptian consulate in Istanbul for his tawkeel, or power of attorney. They gave him a receipt and asked him to...

Published in: Africa, Egypt, Europe & Russia, Interviews, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Turkey
September 28, 2020 | Amelia Smith

In northwest Syria camps brace for covid catastrophe. In Aleppo, locals bribe hospitals for beds

On 10 September 2020 Dr Adnan Al-Jasem became the first doctor in northern Syria to die from coronavirus. Al-Jasem had fled the bombings in Deir Ezzor in the east...

Published in: Article, Middle East, Opinion, Syria
September 11, 2020 | Amelia Smith

They risked their lives to show the horrors of war. Where are Syria's journalists now?

Just before Marie Colvin died, she was looking for her shoes. Rockets had already hit the top floors of the makeshift press centre where she was holed up, in...

Published in: Article, Middle East, Opinion, Syria
August 26, 2020

Twitter ignites as Egypt 'terror' court hands 15-year term to human rights defender

A so-called terrorism court in Egypt has sentenced the President of the Cairo Institute of Human Rights Studies, Bahey El-Din Hassan, to 15 years in prison in absentia. The...

Published in: Africa, Egypt, News, Twitter Trends
August 14, 2020 | Amelia Smith

Egypt's medical aid diplomacy extends to Lebanon

On 4 August 2020, 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate exploded in Beirut Port, sending a mushroom cloud above the city, and lighting a touch paper at one end of...

Published in: Africa, Article, Asia & Americas, Egypt, Europe & Russia, France, Iran, Italy, Lebanon, Middle East, Opinion, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UK, US
August 7, 2020 | Amelia Smith

The regime is determined to rewrite history. Egyptians are giving their lives to prevent it

On 23 June Sanaa Seif, along with her sister Mona, arrived at the Egyptian attorney general's office to file a complaint. The night before, a group of government thugs,...

Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Opinion
July 14, 2020 | Amelia Smith

'We will be victims of an honour killing,' say Saudi sisters at risk of deportation from Turkey

On February 8 2017, Areej and Ashwaq Hamoud packed their belongings and left the house where they grew up in Saudi Arabia to board a plane to what they...

Published in: Asia & Americas, Canada, China, Europe & Russia, Interviews, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Turkey
May 27, 2020 | Amelia Smith

In Egypt a murdered woman means nothing but a policeman means everything

In 2008 Mohsen Al-Sukkari held up a card which identified him as block management and stepped inside the apartment of Lebanese pop sensation Suzanne Tamim. The next morning, she...

Published in: Africa, Article, Egypt, Opinion
April 24, 2020 | Amelia Smith

As a month of mercy begins across the world, no respite for Egyptians

Egypt is facing a catastrophe of epic proportions in the form of coronavirus. Hospitals are closing across the country, doctors are being hooked up to mechanical ventilators, and patients are...

Published in: Africa, Article, Coronavirus, Egypt, Opinion

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