Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Anjuman Rahman
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‘International impunity is the backbone of Israel's occupation,’ says rights group
Every year, Defense for Children International - Palestine collects hundreds of statements from Palestinian children who were arrested and subjected to long periods of interrogation without the presence of a parent, guardian or lawyer, and Israel is never held to account for these abuses, its director tells MEMO. ...
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‘We can use the power and beauty of music against colonial forces,’ says Palestinian-Japanese soprano
When asked what has been the most exciting international appearance, Palestinian-Japanese soprano, Mariam Tamari, quipped that there was nothing like performing with her fellow Palestinian musicians. “We work with the unspoken understanding that music is our intifada, and that urgency, that longing, our shared visions of liberation course through...
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The Palestinian flag will be raised and waved in all corners of the world
The colonial-settler state of Israel has stolen more than three-quarters of Palestine and the mass thefts of land by Zionist militias are still ongoing. As if occupying Palestinian land wasn’t enough, Israel also appropriates Palestinian culture by claiming hummus and couscous as “Israeli” dishes and hosting beauty pageants that...
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Hollywood's Mark Ruffalo praised for calling out PayPal’s discrimination against Palestinians
Hollywood A-lister, Mark Ruffalo, has called out PayPal Holdings for its discrimination against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, who are denied access to its digital payment platform. A vocal critic of Israel’s apartheid against Palestine, he wrote on Twitter: “Friends: PayPal operates in Israel’s...
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Palestinians with links to the PA are becoming billionaires while the rest are living in poverty, rights activist says
Director of the Bisan Centre for Research and Development Ubai Al-Aboudi talks to MEMO about the group’s designation as a terror group by Israel and its work to highlight injustices at the hands of the occupation and within Palestinian society...
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The pro-Israel lobby is colonising British academia with one smear campaign after another
Pro-Israel groups and lawmakers are orchestrating a politically motivated smear campaign against the recently elected President of the National Union of Students (NUS), Shaima Dallali. As part of this campaign, aggressive Zionist groups, including the Union of Jewish Students (UJS), published an open letter expressing concern about a social...
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Female engineer: ‘We can take Palestine to space and beyond’
When Bayan Abu Salameh enrolled in a mechanical engineering degree, she was one of only four women in an intake of more than 70 students at Birzeit University, north of Ramallah. Her career choice had previously encountered doubts among her schoolteachers and peers, who questioned whether it was suitable...
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Palestinians are #not_budging from Al-Aqsa
Pictures of Palestinian worshippers staring down Israeli occupation forces during raids on Al-Aqsa Mosque while also looking bemused amid mass incursions by groups of illegal Jewish settlers in the occupied East Jerusalem have gone viral on social media. The defiant look in a young Palestinians woman’s eyes as she...
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Afro-Palestinians face ‘double the harassment and double the racism’
Nisreen Salem is an Afro-Palestinian from Egypt who has been mocked due to her skin colour and hair for most of her young life. The 25 year old is one of at least 400 Afro-Palestinians from Nigeria, Egypt, Chad, Senegal and Sudan who live within the walls of occupied...
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Meet the Syrian refugees shaking up the British halloumi industry
Raghid Sandouk escaped from his home in Damascus and brought his wife and three children to safety in Britain. “We never thought of living in the UK,” he told me. “Leaving was not an easy decision to make.” However, a car bomb outside his office left him with little...
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‘The world doesn’t care when the victims are Palestinians, they will keep selling weapons to Israel,’ says activist
It was during the late afternoon hours of 29 September 2021 when Basel Al-Adra was being chased by a group of masked Israeli settlers with bats and rocks. They were screaming racist slurs. A few minutes earlier, the journalist and activist had been recording a mob of almost 80...
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Cooking helps them through the crisis days in Gaza, say the founders of its first cookery school
The spicy aroma and pots bubbling away are part of the daily routine that helps to see Nour Al-Batta and her husband Ahmed Taha through the crisis days in the besieged Gaza Strip. Moreover, they help other Palestinians too. As the founders of Smile Kitchen Culinary Arts Academy in...
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Disabled, underage or critically-ill in hospital, Israel soldiers’ abuse with no limits
Al-Ajlouni, 25, suffered from a state of shock, as well as severe pain in the neck and shoulders following his abuse at the hands of the Israeli officers....
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Kidnapped Syrian boy returned to his family
The news that Fawaz had been reunited with his family had people all over the world expressing their relief on Twitter following up with the hashtag 'Save Fawaz Al-Qutayfan'....
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Key to Return: A provocative look at the lives of Palestinians living under occupation
“Take your boots off my son now!” roars Taslima. A pin-drop silence instantly falls over the auditorium. “Don’t point your guns in their faces. They’ve done nothing wrong!” she pleads with the Israeli soldier. “Don’t shout, Taslima. It won’t help,” Ahmed begs. “My old mother is in a wheelchair,...
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This Palestinian oud player performs on the roofs of homes facing demolition
Canaan Ghoul stood tall and proud on the roof of the Salehiyah family home as it awaited demolition by the Israelis recently. He played traditional Palestinian folk songs on his oud while residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied Jerusalem sang along. It was a sight for sore...
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Nine years in Australia’s immigration detention regime, Mehdi Ali is battling suicidal thoughts
Mehdi Ali was only 15 when he made the dangerous journey to Australia by boat in 2013, fleeing persecution in Iran, as members of the Ahwazi Arab minority. “Since then, for nine years now, I’ve been detained under cruel circumstances in offshore and onshore detention centres,” said Mehdi. Marking...
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Meet Gaza’s first national amputee football team training for the Amputee Football World Cup
“It all started about a year and a half ago,” recalled Numan Abu Shamla, Secretary General of the Palestine Amputee Football Association. “They are the first Palestinian national football team made up entirely of amputees, who lost their limbs under different unfortunate circumstances as a result of the Israeli...
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It’s time to talk about mental health and healing in the Middle East, new Palestine start-up says
When lifelong worrier Sondos Mleitat was forced to discreetly sneak across her university corridors to visit the mental health counsellor and seek help, it was the prompt she needed to realise the gap in the Palestinian market for services that are easy to access and culturally sensitive. As an...
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Miss Universe contestants accused of ‘Israelising’ Palestinian culture
Miss Universe contestants accused of 'Israelising' Palestinian culture...
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'The colours that best describe life in prison, in Palestine, is black,' says Cartoonist Mohammad Sabaaneh
Mohammad Sabaaneh, a political cartoonist, endured two weeks of his detention in solitary confinement before being held in an Israeli prison for five months. He says the Israeli government cracks down on Palestinians who use art to oppose occupation....
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I want the world to share the Palestinian experience through my book, says Swedish journalist
Swedish journalist Lena Fredriksson’s account of everyday life under Israel’s West Bank occupation is informed and passionate. All Quiet on the West Bank? Living under prolonged occupation pulls no punches in its critique of Israeli policies, including the imprisonment of children in military prisons and checkpoints which restrict freedom...
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The Sinsila Project sees Palestinian beekeepers taking over East Jerusalem rooftops
Rooftops in occupied East Jerusalem are being used by Palestinian women for innovative beekeeping and gardening to combat the challenges of life in the cramped, cobbled neighbourhoods of the Old City. With unemployment and poverty rates surging due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Sinsila Project, founded by Tariq Nassar,...
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Artists nominate Palestinian refugee camp for UNESCO world heritage status
During the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe), the nascent Israeli army occupied more than 40 Palestinian villages to the west of Jerusalem. The residents were driven out of their homes and took refuge in what is now known as the occupied West Bank. Up to 15,000 of these refugees settled in...
