Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Amelia Smith
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Egyptian prisoners gassed to death in an increasingly grisly war
These days, as the sun rises over Egypt it brings with it death, violence and arrests. On Sunday it brought with it an episode worse than your darkest nightmares. As a convoy of police trucks crossed the dusty streets of Cairo carrying some 600 prisoners (some Brotherhood some not), 38...
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Western public oppose military intervention in Syria
Last Wednesday opposition activists in Syria reported over 1,000 dead after a gruesome attack in which rockets with chemical weapons were launched into the Ghouta area of Damascus. Doctors Without Borders reported that they accommodated 3,600 patients in less than three hours of the attack in their hospitals in...
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Britain resumes arms sales to Egypt despite commitment to protect human rights
On 21 August this year, EU Member States agreed to suspend licences for goods to Egypt that could possibly be used for “internal repression,” including those for the Egyptian Army, Air Force and Internal Security Forces and the Ministry of Interior. In August Egypt saw plenty of internal repression, which...
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Egypt's military target universities and turn on student protestors
Last night medical student Abdel Ghany Hamouda died from birdshot wounds to the head after Egyptian police stormed Al-Azhar University in Cairo, one of the top religious institutions in Sunni Islam. It was the military’s latest warning that speaking out about their heavy handed rule, or indeed demanding the...
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Most Egyptians believe it was wrong to depose Morsi
The latest poll by Zogby Research Services LLC, released to the public this week, has revealed that Egyptians are divided over the toppling of Mohammed Morsi. 51% believe he was the legitimately elected president and it was wrong to depose him, whilst 46% believe it was the correct decision....
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Britain refuses UN call to house Syrian refugees
The United Nations has classed the Syrian refugee crisis as the worst since the Rwandan genocide ten years ago. They have compared it to the aftermath of the war and sectarian violence in Iraq and the conflicts that came out of the breakup of Yugoslavia. There are now over 2.3...
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Ashton's holiday to Luxor endorses military regime
Last week European Union foreign affairs policy chief Catherine Ashton and her family were photographed on their Christmas holidays in Luxor visiting the Valley of the Kings and sailing the River Nile. According to the Middle East Media Center for Studies the EU chief also met with tourism minister...
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Freedom or Opportunism: Who is really benefitting from the Middle East?
During the Arab Spring social media channels were elevated to heroic status. Tunisian Facebook pages bore the slogan ‘Ben Ali, Out’, a harsh signal to the former president in a country more used to censorship than freedom of speech. It was through Twitter that the Egyptian revolutionaries disclosed their...
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Recycling in Rafah
Women wearing luminous orange vests and huge red rubber gloves sort through the cans and plastic bags passing by on the conveyor belt before them. The masks that cover their faces protect them from the hazardous gas released from the rubbish, as well as the stench. Outside, their colleagues...
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New law in Egypt hopes to turn the lights out by midnight
If you have a craving for coffee in the middle of the night in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, it’s not difficult to find a café that’s open 24/7. The glare of light from the shops downtown fills the street well into the early hours; taxis roam the streets through...
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America's Jewish population drift away from Israel
In an interview with the New Internationalist last year American scholar Norman Finkelstein pointed out recent, prominent defections from American support for Israel; New Yorker editor, David Remnick, previous editor of the New Republic Peter Beinhart and Nobel prize-winning and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. Despite this, a...
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In Jordan, young people are finding innovative ways to practice politics
In Jordan, the parliamentary elections in January were viewed as little more than an exercise in public relations. At least this is the sentiment among those who oppose the election law on the basis that it endorses government loyalists and tribal leaders, excludes emerging political parties and represents a...
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In Palestine, Israeli Youth Law has its own meaning
Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem has revealed that this week Israeli soldiers arrested twenty-seven young Palestinians in route 160, Hebron, whilst they were on their way to school. At least 14 of them were under the age of 12 and some were as young as eight. Though they are...
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What has become of Syria? A country in crisis
Syria once smelt of strong black coffee and sheesha pipes. People played backgammon in crowded coffee shops late into the night, whilst the aroma of fresh chicken drifted through the air from street stalls that lined the pavements. Markets were piled high with Syrian soap and wooden boxes with...
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Gaza's property boom is not the full story
Last week, Channel 4’s Unreported World offered an insight into the Gaza Strip’s property market. With almost 2 million inhabitants trapped on a sliver of land 25 miles long, another half million people expected by 2020 and houses being destroyed by the conflict, “prices will soar,” reporter Seyi Rhodes...
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65 years on, and the Nakba continues
Earlier this month, Israeli forces declared plans to demolish 11 homes in Deir Nidham in the northwest of Ramallah; their destruction will make way for the expansion of the Halamish settlement, which has been established on part of the village’s land. Authorities say the houses were built without permits...
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Arab Idol is about much more than just music
For the past three months pop-star hopefuls from across the Middle East have assembled in MBC’s Beirut studios to compete for the title of Arab Idol. Every Friday they sing to a studio of fans, a panel of adjudicators and an audience at home who vote via text message...
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A deadly massacre on the eve of Ramadan
This morning army and police officers opened fire on pro-Morsi supporters as they prayed outside the Republican Headquarters in Cairo. The demonstrators were staging a peaceful sit-in outside the building where their now overthrown leader is said to be held; they want Morsi to be reinstated before they leave. At...
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Cairo Year One: Nermine Hammam at The Mosaic Rooms, London
At first glance Nermine Hammam’s work looks like beautiful Japanese prints hung on the lower floor of The Mosaic Rooms, a renovated Victorian townhouse that is now an art gallery in West London. But if you step closer and really study the images, hidden behind the blossoming flowers and...
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Remembering Egypt and Palestine with Reem Kelani at the Ealing Jazz Festival
“Many people ask me, how come you like jazz and you’re an Arab? And I tell them it’s because I’m an Arab” Reem teases, laughing at her own joke. She’s referring to the make-up of her band; it’s unusual to see an Arabic singer with British jazz musicians. In the...
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Freedom of expression comes in many shapes and sizes, but who decides the boundaries of art in Tunisia?
The protests in Tunisia in 2010 may have swept away former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and 23 years of autocratic rule, but they have replaced him with a coalition government under which several political factions battle to create their own vision for the country. In what has proved...
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Palestinian artists invited to present their work across the bridge that both connects and separates them from Jordan
The River has two Banks: A Curatorial Project across Ramallah, Palestine and Amman, Jordan from September to the end of October 2012 The King Hussein Bridge that links Jordan and the occupied Palestinian territories may not be very long, but its political and social connotations are endless. Ironically, the same...
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Judith Butler wins Theodor Adorno Prize despite opponents
This week the City of Frankfurt chose to award American Jewish philosopher and Berkeley Professor Judith Butler with the 2012 Theodor Adorno Prize, an award that acknowledges superb contributions to philosophy, theatre, music and film. To her supporters she is a thought leader in political theory, moral philosophy and...
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Saudi's first female film director explores gender roles in debut at Venice Film Festival
Waad Mohammed could be a twelve-year-old girl anywhere in the world. With long, curly brown hair and a cheeky smile, the flashes of the cameras reflect off her silver dress as she made her appearance on the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival this week. But her recent...