Voices Of The Middle East And North Africa

This week, we speak with Paris-based Iranian historian Nasser Mohajer about the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in Iran in the summer of 1988 Later in the program, award-winning Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki will talk to us about her new film Capernaum, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes film festival this year.

VOMENA Nov 23, 2018 by VOMENA Team at KPFA

The images of starving Yemeni children have become the face of the brutal Saudi-led, US supported war against Yemen We speak with Hussein Mohsen co-founder of Yemen Relief Project about the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and what’s being done to bring some relief to the war-stricken country. Later in the program, Syrian filmmaker Talal Derki speaks about his award-winning film, Of Fathers of Sons, which won the prize this year at the Sun Dance film festival-

On 2 October, Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi regime Insider and self-exiled critic of Mohamad Bin Salman walked into his country's consulate in Istanbul and never came out. After initial denials and claims that he had left the consulate shortly after arriving, Saudi Arabia admitted that the Mr Khashoggi was dead and it was some rouge elements who committed the murder. Soon after the disappearance of Mr Khashoggi, media outlets close to Mr Erdogan started leaking out details that Mr Khashoggi had been tortured, dismembered and disposed of by an elite hit squad sent from Saudi Arabia Turkey's authoritarian leader Recep Tayyib Erdogan - himself one of the biggest jailers of dissidents and journalists - promised to name those involved in this heinous crime, but so far has not released any names. In a recent op ed in the Washington post, Mr. Erdogan wrote, "we know the order to kill Khashoggi came from the highest levels of the Saudi government.” He added “I have no reason to believe that his murder reflected Saudi Ar

Nine months after a group of environmentalists affiliated with the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation were imprisoned in Iran without any evidence of wrongdoing and denied due process—and after the death of the organization's founder, Kavous Seyed Emami - five members of this Foundation have been charged with national security crimes carrying the death penalty. We speak with Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran about the crackdown on environmentalists in Iran. Also this week, Amman-based activist, fiction writer and poet Hisham Bustani joins us to talk about two of his latest poems just translated and published in English.

VOMENA Oct 26, 2018 by VOMENA Team at KPFA

Ever since a fishmonger was crushed to death in November of 2016 by a garbage compactor in El Hoceima, The northern Rif region of Morocco has been the scene of social unrest and protest against the Moroccan government, a movement that has been spreading to other parts of Morocco over the past two years.This week, we get an update on the protest movement in Morocco with Moroccan anthropologist Miriyam Aouragh. Bay Area based activist and after school teacher Heather LaMastro speaks with us about her her pen pal project connecting kids in the Bay Area with kids Gaza living in the besieged Gaza strip, and also about her humanitarian visit to the besieged Gaza Strip.

French President Emanuel Macron recently broke a long held taboo by recognizing the culpability of the French government in the kidnapping and murder of anti-colonial activist Maurice Audin in 1957 in Algiers. We look into the possible motivations behind this bold and historic act by the French president with UC Santa Cruz’ history Professor Muriem Haleh Davis, whose research focuses on the French colonial empire and the post-colonial world in the Middle East and North Africa.

Why would a celebrated Chilean playwright decide to bring attention to a human tragedy all the way back in Syria that has been unfolding for the past 7 years? Bay area based artist and director of Guillermo Calderón's play Boosa or Kiss, in Arabic, Evren Odcikin tells us about his decision to direct this play and about the role that art and theater can play in addressing pressing cultural and political problems. But first we'll hear a conversation with Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, about Israel’s deportation order against him and the challenge to this decision - and to the draconian law it is based on - which Human Rights Watch has mounted in Israeli courts. Vomena contributor professor Bassam Haddad spoke with Omar Shakir about Israel’s passage of the Nation State Law, enshrining Jewish supremacy over Palestinians as a constitutional mandate, and how shifting regional dynamics may impact the human rights situation on the ground.`

This week, we bring you the the second part of an indepth conversation about the root causes of the protests in Iraq with Balsam Mustafa, a PhD researcher in Modern Languages & Politics at the University of Birmingham Also this week, we remember the great palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish who passed away on August 9th 2008, following complications after major heart surgery in Houston, Texas. He was just 67.

Last month oppressive summer heats, lack of water and electricity, and pent-up anger against government corruption sparked mass protests in southern oil rich city of Basra. It quickly spread across the south of the country and into Baghdad- People in Iraq have sent a clear message to the government- enough is enough! This week, we bring you the first part of an in-depth conversation about the root causes of the protests in Iraq with Balsam Mustafa, a PhD researcher in Modern Languages & Politics at the University of Birmingham Also this week, artist and author Dr. Cara Judea El Hadeff joins us to talk about her children’s book, Zazu Dreams. It is a tale about the adventures of a Sephardic boy and his imaginary friend, a malamute husky, as they traverse the globe on a humpback whale across time and space, experiencing the marvels and may-hem of the relationship between humans and their environments.

Iraqi-American pediatrician Dr Mona Hanna-Attisha has played a critical role in exposing the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, which affected thousands of adults and children after dangerous cost-cutting measures led to widespread lead poisoning. This week, we speak with Dr Attisha about her new book “What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City,” which centers on her own account of the crisis through both scientific and activist lenses. Later in the program, Italian director Marco Proserpio will tell us about the making of his documentary film “The Man Who Stole Banksy” , which chronicles the saga of one of street artist Banksy’s murals in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem and how it ended up on the western world's commercial art market.

This week, we bring you a conversation about the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding Trump administration ban on travelers from seven cpu tries, most of them Muslim-majority nations. Last month, In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court reversed a federal court’s judgment against the third version of the Trump administration’s travel ban. Now, the Supreme Court has upheld Trump’s ban on travel from North Korea, Venezuela Syria, Iran, Yemen, Somalia and Libya. We'll have a conversation with Penn State Immigration law professor SHOBA SIVAPRASAD WADHIA of Penn State University about the Supreme Court decision and the Trump administration's xenophobic and anti immigrant policies. Later in the program, we'll bring back an interview with Marcel Khalife, celebrated Lebanese composer, singer, and aoud player, and one of the Arab world's most revered and celebrated cultural icons.

This week, we bring you the second part of an in depth conversation about the presidential election and the ruling Justice and Development party or AKP in Turkey with sinan Birdal, a visiting assistant professor of International Relations and Middle East Studies at the University of Southern California In the second part of the conversation, we speak about the base of support for President Ardogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) . We also discuss about the impact of government's economic policies, the ongoing state of emergency as well as Turkey’s military intervention in Syria on the country’s political landscape and the June 24 elections. We will also speak with award winning director Gianfranco Rosi about his documentary film Fire at Sea. It explores the human cost of refugee crisis. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jun/09/fire-at-sea-review-masterly-and-moving-look-at-the-migrant-crisis

This week, we bring you the first part of an in depth conversation about the presidential election and the ruling Justice and Development party or AKP in Turkey with sinan Birdal, a visiting assistant professor of International Relations and Middle East Studies at the University of Southern California

Award-winning journalist Rania Abu Zeid has made countless trips inside Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Washington, and several European towns and cities to cover the Syrian uprising and the deadly civil and proxy war that ensued and destroyed tens of millions of lives. This week Rania Abouzeid joins us to talk about her new book, No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria Later in the program Vomena’s contributor Paola Messini sits down with Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan to discuss her latest album Al Jamilat (The Beautiful Ones)

In the summer of 2015, a wave of refugees taking perilous sea and land crossings to get into Europe exposed one of the worst humanitarian crises in modern history, the wars in Syria and Iraq and the worsening situation in Afghanistan having forced hundreds of thousands of people to live their homes and risk their lives to seek sanctuary elsewhere. According to the most recent reports, in 2014, 14 million people were displaced by war, the most in a single year since World War II. In the past decade, forty thousand people died trying to cross international borders. The dramatic increase in the influx of refugees to Europe has produced a rise in anti-refugee sentiments, the enactments of anti-refugee laws and the construction of walls and fences, exacerbating the plight of millions of people who were forced to flee war violence and poverty. Reece Jones is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, and author of several books including his most recent Violent Borders: Refugees and

On Saturday, May 12th, Iraq held its parliamentary elections to decide the 329 members of the body, which will serve as the basis for establishing a new government. While Nearly 7000 candidates and more than 200 parties were vying for votes, only 44 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots in the recent elections; a notably low figure given that, no election since the U.S-British invasion of 2003 has had a turnout below 60 percent. This week we spend the hour focusing on the primary concerns of Iraqis in the run up to the election, the main protagonists contending for power in these elections. So What do the election results represent? What does the outcome mean to the regional and international actors? To answer these questions, Vomena’s Shahram Aghamir spoke with Loulouwa Al Rachid, who has been conducting research on Iraq and the Gulf region for the past 20 years- She argues that the elections highlighted the wide and dangerous gap between rulers and ruled in Iraq by reflecting massive popular rejec

For the past thirty year, The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) has been working for the rights of children in the Middle East by sending humanitarian aid, supporting projects for children and educating North American and international communities about the effects of the US foreign policy on children in the region. This week, we speak The Middle East Children’s Alliance founder Barbara Lubin and MECA’s program manager for cross-cultural programs Ziad Abbas about the organization’s humanitarian work in Palestine. Also this week, we bring back a conversation we had with Palestinian visual artist Khaled Jarrar about his award-winning documentary film, “Infiltrators.”

in his new book "Inter/Nationalism Decolonizing Native America and Palestine," Steven Salaita argues that American Indian and Indigenous studies must be more central to the scholarship and activism focusing on Palestine. His discussion includes a fascinating inside account of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement; a wide range of Native poetry; the speeches of U.S. President Andrew Jackson; and the discourses of “shared values” between the United States and Israel.