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Middle East Monitor
 

Amelia Smith

amyinthedesert

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.

 

Items by Amelia Smith

  • Inside Egypt's child torture chambers

    Inside a filthy police van near Al-Azhar University an officer points to a fragment of light shining through a tiny opening: “See this bit of sun?” he asks Amena Yasser and the 16 other young men and women inside. “We’re going to put you behind it and we’ll see...

  • Building myths about refugees instead of a fair policy in the UK

    In the UK politicians have held immigrants responsible for the housing crisis, unemployment and the disarray in the NHS system. The British government has held them up to the charge of benefit tourism and says their reluctance to integrate or learn English has made British people feel uncomfortable. If...

  • Gerry Adams talks to MEMO: 'Personally I have found that the hardest negotiation is with your own side'

    During Britain’s long conflict in Northern Ireland the British media branded IRA members “mafia” and “godfathers”, recalls Gerry Adams. He says it was part of a negative propaganda campaign to dehumanise and undermine the republican struggle for freedom in the same way Britain has always pitted itself against “terrorists”,...

  • Spray painting philosophy

    Calligraffiti artist eL Seed combines calligraphy, graffiti and philosophy in his latest mural to open the Shubbak festival in Shoreditch, East London. In downtown Shoreditch, French-Tunisian street artist eL Seed is transforming a dull grey wall into a colourful mural. He has already translated a quote from the English philosopher...

  • Talking to terrorists

    Richard Jackson speaks to MEMO: “Once you listen to what their grievances are and try and address them terrorism subsides.” One week ago, Tunisian student Seifeddine Rezgai opened fire on tourists near Sousse, Tunisia, killing 38 people. On the same day, a man was beheaded in France and a...

  • ‘We are not made of ink’

    Lebanese author Elias Khoury speaks to MEMO: “It’s more interesting to read books than it is to live in them.” Elias Khoury has lived through Black September, the Six Day War, the Israeli invasion of 1982 and the Lebanese civil war. More recently a conflict in Syria has been...

  • Will the UK's support for violent resistance extend to the Brotherhood's peaceful struggle?

    In December 2013 Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood was declared a terrorist organisation by what was then the interim, military-backed government. The new decree criminalised the group’s activities and promised to punish those suspected of financing or promoting it. As it turned out, punishment was putting it mildly: between July 2013...

  • Profile: Hafez Al-Assad (12 March 1971 - 10 June 2000)

    Of the five members of the Ba’ath Party’s Military Committee who seized power in Syria in 1963, Hafez Al-Assad went the furthest. Of the other four, one took the blame for Syria’s loss of the Golan Heights during the Six Day War and was pushed out of politics; one...

  • 5 Broken Cameras: A picture of resistance

    Emad Burnat, director of 5 Broken Cameras, speaks to MEMO: "I tell Israeli activists they should work inside Israeli society and not just come to our village."...

  • Syrian Life on Hold in Lebanon

    Maya Louay El Sheikh Issa loves bananas. Back home in Syria her and her brother found a secret stash in the kitchen cupboard and ate them all. She also recalls a pink teddy bear she used to own, but speculates as to whether it is now filled with bullets....

  • Creating art out of Iraq's darkness

    Alfraji’s first recollection of black shapes is from his childhood in Iraq when the family would commemorate the Day of Ashura and both men and women would dress in black to mourn the death of Imam Hussein. He recalls his mother boiling pigment in water to dye clothes black...

  • Jihadimania and an end to arms trade with Israel: What are the challenges in the upcoming election?

    With the UK elections less than one week away three experts give their views on the challenges facing British Muslims, political parties and UK foreign policy in the Middle East. ISIS, Islamophobia and Prevent In 2012 a group of Muslim men of Pakistani and Afghani origin were tried and convicted of...

  • Profile: Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006)

    On 30 December 2006 former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was executed...

  • Mapping Syria through media coverage of the conflict

    The Syrian conflict has entered its fifth year. Over 200,000 Syrians have died, around 7 million are internally displaced, and 3 million have fled the country. More than half of these refugees are children. Homes, hospitals and schools have been bombed. Communities under siege have been cut off from...

  • War on terror has killed two million

    Two weeks after Tunisia’s deadly Bardo attacks, vendors in Hammamet’s souks lay out brightly coloured pots and cotton scarves under the March sunshine. It’s hard to believe this seaside town on the Mediterranean was once the most popular destination for tourists who travel to swim in its turquoise water...

  • Profile: Mahmoud Darwish (13 March 1941 - 9 August 2008)

    Renowned Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish performs his iconic piece "There is on this land that which makes life worth living"....

  • Healing war wounds with yoga

    “Will this make my head feel better?” asks one of the men attending Bella Hancock’s yoga classes in Amman, Jordan. As refugees many of her students suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and such workshops are designed to counter its negative effects. Many struggle to control their anger, for...

  • Refugees from Syria seeking asylum in the UK may be welcome, but they must risk a perilous journey first

    Ahmed Zakri is from the village of Jalin in the Daraa province of Syria, just north of the border of Jordan. The road that leads out of the violence and into the neighbouring country has been closed since summer 2013. At some point Zakri’s family negotiated their way past...

  • Profile: King Hussein of Jordan (14 November 1935 - 7 February 1999)

    King Hussein of Jordan is said to have survived at least seven military coups and 12 assassination attempts. In his 1962 autobiography, Uneasy Lies the Head, he wrote: “sometimes I feel like the central character in a detective novel.” He weathered the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War...

  • Iran’s most celebrated visual artist, Parviz Tanavoli, speaks to MEMO about his work

    As a young boy Parviv Tanavoli’s favourite toy was the simple lock. As there were no ready-made toys like those of today he would take them apart, fix them and make keys for the ones that didn’t work. “I was the locksmith of the neighbourhood because all the locks...

  • Cardinal Vincent Nichols on Gaza, ISIS and Charlie Hebdo

    “There are aspects to Israeli policy and behaviour that do immense damage in the eyes of the international community” One of the most senior figures in the Catholic Church in the UK, Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Vincent Nichols, recently met with major business leaders in London to discuss the reputation...

  • Linda Sarsour speaks to MEMO about Islamophobia in America

    To Elan magazine Linda Sarsour is one of the 15 most inspiring women from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia region. Designated “the face of social activism” Elan credits Sarsour with empowering both Arab and African American communities. Why, then, does self-styled US terror expert Steven Emerson describe...

  • Profile: Gamal Abdel Nasser (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970)

    97 years after Nasser the great Arab nationalist was born he is still making waves in Egypt. On a warm evening in late July 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser is addressing a crowd of 200,000 in Egypt’s northern city of Alexandria: “It is an attitude of such arrogance towards...

  • #SetHerFree – a campaign to end the inhumane detention of women in the UK

    As an asylum seeker from Turkey Meltem Avcil arrived in England aged 13. Along with her mother she was detained in Bedfordshire’s detention centre, Yarl’s Wood, which has gained notoriety for its cruel treatment of asylum seekers. “Being there for three months I saw many women self-harm,” she tells...