Interviews

Dr Mezna AlMarzooqi set up the first Women’s Sports Initiative at Saudi universities to help break the taboo of females taking part in physical activity in the kingdom, she tells MEMO what inspired her

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...

The Palestinian people have used many tactics in their legitimate resistance against the Israeli occupation which has robbed them of their land, rights and holy places. The use of...

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...

A Lebanese Brazilian Muslim woman who won the first series of Bake Off Brasil in 2015 is now a well-known figure all over the country. Samira Ghannoum won the...

Hanadi Halawani has been banned from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque for eight years as a result of her resistance of the occupation, she tells MEMO how Israel is working to break the Palestinian will and reduce the Arab population in the holy city

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...

Israel's repression of its own Palestinian citizens, as well as Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and even African refugees, has become ever more brutal, despite...

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.

While US President Donald Trump was busy inciting a mob to attack the Capitol Building in Washington DC, Palestinian activist Issa Amro was convicted on three counts of protesting...

Manar Khalawi has no doubt that she will meet her fiancé soon. Theirs is not a normal engagement, however, because Osama Al-Ashqar is serving a life sentence in Israel's...

19-year-old Hallel Rabin spent 56 days in jail after refusing to complete military service she believes it allows 'criminals, thieves and swindlers to roam free and run the state'...

MEMO speaks to London-based Libyan gallerist and curator Najlaa Elageli

Jawahir "JJ" Roble is so dedicated to her career as a football referee she has "cut down" on her consumption of chicken nuggets in favour of "good food, like...

Over the past few years, the number of women from the Middle East participating in international sporting events has risen steadily. The glass ceiling appears to have been broken....

Artist, director and poet Hind Shoufani insists that her Palestinian-ness is a political act. "It is a choice to be on this side of history," she tells me, "whether...

On 29 August 1969, TWA Flight 840 took off from Los Angeles for Tel Aviv via Rome. There were 116 passengers on board, including a young Palestinian woman called Laila Khaled

A Palestinian journalist and activist has been detained for the fifth time by the Israeli authorities after being released earlier this year from an eight-month term of administrative detention,...

Of all Turkey's strained relations in recent years – its disputes with the United States, conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean and military confrontations in Syria and Libya – the...

Lebanese author Naji Bakhti's debut novel is timely even though it is set in 2006. Touching on issues of adolescence, sectarianism, culture, conflict and emigration, Between Beirut and the...

Interview with Christophe Oberlin by Hassina Mechaï

Our interview with co-chair of the Palestinian History Tapestry Jan Chalmers

The 38-year-old daughter of Palestinian immigrants became a trained political scientist after earning a bachelor's degree at the University of Colorado Denver and then a Master’s degree in Public Policy.

In a world that is heavily digitised and thriving in the art of cultural acceptance, there has come a generation of creatives that unapologetically express their love for culture...

In ancient mythology it was believed that salamanders are born from fire. No metaphor would be more fitting for the Lebanese artists who need to rise from the ashes...

Our interview with the Director of Seville Mosque Foundation, Ibrahim Hernandez

Art communicates across every border and culture. Visual art is open and ambiguous, and allows imaginations to wander in time and space. Through London-based artist Alaa Alsaraji, they even...

December 1960. In most of Algeria's largest cities, a vast uprising of the "natives" shook the French colonial power. This revolutionary impulse turned the "Algerian people" into a decisive...

The Austrian capital, Vienna, is recovering slowly from the trauma of the deadly gun attack near a synagogue on Monday 2 November by a gunman of Macedonian origin. Kujtim...

Our interview with Roua Naboulsi of the London Palestine Film Festival

China's decades-long abuse of Uyghurs Muslims is now well known, with satellite pictures of detention camps circulating along with the desperate testimonies of former inmates and their families, a...

Our interview with Prof Salman Sayyid