Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Anjuman Rahman
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Meet the first female Kuwait storm chaser hunting tornadoes and flashing lightning bolts
Most people look forward to staying home, curled up and cosy under covers on the dreary, dark days when it is pouring outside. Many even consider it one of life’s simple greatest pleasures. But for 39-year-old Sarah Al-Sayegh, her idea of all things fun and exciting, quite literally, lies within...
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Israel is haunting Al-Aqsa to scare Palestinian worshippers away
On the 14th night of Taraweeh, thousands of Palestinian worshippers prostrated in unison in the direction of the Holy City of Makkah, beneath the silver domed Al-Qibli Mosque in Al-Aqsa, located in Jerusalem’s walled Old City. Hundreds of the faithful elders were tucked away in corners of the ancient, limestone...
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Horses, elegance and tatreez: The Palestinian woman competing in dressage on a world stage
35-year-old Diana Al Shaer comes from a family of politicians, when she chose a career in horse riding she didn't know it would bring her closer to her family roots and make her an ambassador for Palestine ...
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Normalising conversation about Arab women’s sexual health led to threats and challenges, Motherbeing co-founder says
For decades, women in Egyptian society and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have suffered considerable shame when discussing women’s health and personal care. Motherbeing co-founders, Nour Emam and Yousef ElSammaa, are working to change this for both the younger and older generations. “The main issue with the region as...
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‘The Chinese authorities must release my 19-year-old sister,’ demands Uyghur engineer
Genocide against the Uyghur Muslims continues to worsen as the world looks on, despite its mass atrocities that have come into stark focus over the past five years. Thousands of Uyghur children have been abandoned without parents and family, as their mothers, fathers and siblings are forced into Chinese internment...
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Stranded at an airport for 7 months: MEMO in conversation with Hassan Al Kontar
Having fled Syria to avoid military service, Hassan found himself living the life of Tom Hank's character in The Terminal with no country willing to give him refuge...
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Palestine too has a right to self-defence
Last week, former US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, tweeted then retweeted: “Israel has a right to self-defense.” This bold statement seems to be missing a crucial detail: Palestine too has a right to self-defence. In accordance with international humanitarian law, wars of national liberation have been expressly...
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Teacher revives art of letter writing to connect students across the world with children in Gaza
Before this digital age of social media texts and direct messages, it was commonplace to receive heartfelt handwritten letters from a pen pal, a postcard from overseas or annual colourful festive cards. It is an experience the Berkeley, California-based teacher, Heather La Mastro, aimed to rediscover with her students at...
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Meet the first Egyptian, Arab female to blast into space
In a field among the stars, where Egypt had no markers, engineer Sara Sabry became the first Egyptian, Arab and African woman to blast into space. The view of Earth from outer space has utterly transformed perspectives on civilisation, the planet, and the world’s relationship to the universe beyond l. And...
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‘Kurdish women burn themselves, surrender to death out of despair,’ says head nurse Nigar Marf, 1 of BBC’S 100 most influential women 2022
“The most difficult part of my work is when I face women who are forced to lie about their cause of burn injuries because they’re being threatened with their lives by their husbands or family.” “But the stench of the oil gives away the foul truth,” said the chief nurse...
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Morocco won a bigger prize than the World Cup trophy
The 2022 World Cup has been an occasion of many historic firsts. It began as the first tournament to be hosted in an Arab nation, the first to be held during the winter season and the first to feature an Arab and African team in the semi-finals. Defying the odds to...
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‘It’s imperative that more voices like mine are at the table’: Georgia first Muslim Palestinian rep
A hijab-wearing Palestinian American woman was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives for the first time. Ruwa Romman has made history earlier this month as the first Muslim and Palestinian-American elected to any office in the State, following ten months of actively campaigning. Having worked in local politics for quite...
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Yusra Mardini: The Syrian Olympic athlete who swam for three hours to save lives
The Swimmers is a new film based on the story of two Syrian sisters that literally swam to Europe as war refugees...
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Meet the Egyptian photographer who is at home among the wildlife in Kenya
For close to 300 days a year, Abdelrahman Hassanein’s workmates are lions, cheetahs, buffalo and elephants. Not for him a desk, computer and colleagues engaged in mundane work. Instead, the 39-year-old Egyptian naturalist and wildlife photographer, is the safari director at Talek Bush Camp in Kenya, and usually keeps...
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‘We will stay here until Palestine is free,’ says farmer beaten by Jewish settlers
Last month, a 51-year-old Palestinian farmer was tending to his family land on the outskirts of the village of At-Tuwani, where they grow olives, figs, tomatoes and zucchini. A group of five masked Israeli settlers, armed with MI6 rifles, bats and metal pipes, emerged suddenly from the nearby illegal...
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Liz Truss is following in Trump’s footsteps, but more boldly and blindly
In just less than a month after she became Britain’s newly appointed Prime Minister, Liz Truss declared her unwavering support for Israel. At a Conservative Friends of Israel event in Birmingham, Truss, in the boldest terms, proclaimed herself as “a huge Zionist and huge supporter of Israel” and pledged that...
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‘In Middle Eastern culture, food and hospitality are a love language’
Syrian-American Ahmad Alzahabi has turned the skills he learnt helping his mum make family dinners into recipes that followers can use to discover their own palette ...
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Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza
Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear defies order and structure. It is a staggeringly diverse collection and as deep, heavy and haunting as the very days Israel rains down bombs and drones on Gaza. Some of Mosab Abu Toha’s subjects in this recently published poetry collection are vast...
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Rachel Corrie wanted to ensure she could always return to Gaza, says her mother. ‘In a way, she never left’
The murder of 23-year-old American Rachel Corrie on 16 March 2003 started a global conversation about how Israel gets away with its terrorism against civilians and human rights defenders in the occupied Palestinian territories. Nineteen years later, Israel is still denying Rachel’s family justice and any sign of accountability...
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How many times must Gaza be rebuilt, to be bombed again?
Israel is infamous for bombing the innocent in the Gaza Strip. During Israel’s latest three-day military offensive against the besieged enclave on 5 August, 49 people, including 17 children and four women were killed. Israeli air and artillery strikes also struck various targets across Gaza that it claimed belonged to...
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Reclaiming humanity in Palestinian hunger strikes: Revolutionary subjectivity and decolonizing the body
The deployment of the physical body into a site of struggle and resistance remains one of the most poignant and controversial methods of protest. Due to its tremendous toll, practising hunger strikes have always provoked extreme reactions, from bitter irony to deepest admiration. In just a matter of days, physical...
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‘Fear must be used as motivation to keep moving forward’, says first Arab woman to summit K2
Lebanese Nelly Attar was driven by the memory of her father to reach the top to the world’s second highest and most deadly peak, K2...
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The Chinese gov’t arrested my Uyghur husband, jailed him for 25 years for visiting Turkiye
Every now and then, the world is fed a dizzying kaleidoscope of tormenting Uyghur accounts. There are millions. In May, the BBC published a damning report proving up to 1.2 million Uyghur Muslims have been detained and mistreated “not for what they’ve done but for who they are”. A catalogue of...
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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. ...