ثلاثة أحرفٍ (بنت) نحتَت مسارات حياتي منذ هجرتي القاسية من رحم أمي على يد خالتها، أم رامي، في مدينتنا التي كانت منسيّةً قبل أن تُصبح أخبارًا عاجلة، إدلب في سوريا. كما كل البنات في مدينتي، وُلدت مع طريقٍ مرسومٍ بمحطّاتٍ مُفّصلةٍ ومُنزلةٍ في كتبٍ عديدة، بعضها مُقدّس، وأغلبها مخطوطاتٌ من أفكار ذكوريةٍ مُتوارثةٍ أصبحَت أعرافًا يُجرّم التساؤل بشأنها. تُسيّج محطات حياتنا بحقول صبّارٍ في العائلات الحنونة القليلة، وتُزنّر بالألغام في العائلات الأخرى، وعلى بابها كتبوا “خطؤك الأول هو خطؤك الأخير”. لا مجال للعفوية والفضول، والمُخاطرة بالشذوذ عن أيّ طريقٍ تحتاج لروحٍ متمّردةٍ لا تخشى الخسارة.    ..read more

Dear colleagues covering the war on Gaza nowadays: Putting claims that are “impossible to be verified” in your headline is not an individual mistake, it’s an editorial decision to fuel misinformation, spread hate and justify war crimes. Asking guests who are not members of a certain group to condemn its actions and interrupting them when trying to highlight their stories is hostile, keep your challenging questions for the Israeli officials who are proudly declaring committing war crimes while only being given open questions and mics. Prioritizing some victims’ lives over others can’t be bu ..read more

Journalists With Women Against Violence is a series of 6 videos for journalists, journalism educators, students and editors working in our region generally & in #Morocco specially. It’s based on the guide “Reporting on Violence Against Women: Not Your Ordinary Story Assignment” produced by Networks of Change and MRA Mobilising for Rights Associates. An introduction to the series: The 1st episode highlights the different types of violence women face in our region and how to report it using the rights-based approach. In the 2nd episode of the, we discuss how to find ideas for your stories ..read more

سلسلة فيديوهات “صحافة مع النسا ضد العنف”، موجهة للعاملين والعاملات بمجال الصحافة والتحرير في منطقتنا بشكل عام والمغرب بشكل خاص. تعدّ هذه السلسلة وتشرف عليها منظمة “شبكات من أجل التغيير” وهي مبنيّة على الدليل التدريبي للتغطية الإعلامية للعنف ضد النساء، وعنوانه “مهمة ليست كغيرها” الذي أعدّته المنظمة مع منظمة “شبكات من أجل التعبئة- امرأة”.   ..read more

“Why are you still doing this?” A question thrown at me often by people who love me and those who hate me. Although they have very different reasons for asking the question, both want me to stop posting and reporting on “controversial” issues. For the first group, the loved ones, I am causing the waves of attacks. I endure bullying and violence occasionally when I report on facts that many people would rather keep swept under the rug—or when I share unpopular opinions of events, such as most of my feminist views. For the haters, I am a package of negative — and contradicting — qualities ..read more

”أنا مندسة وعميلة وجاسوسة..لكني صديقتك“، كان هذا هو عنوان مدونتي الأولى[1] التي أطلقت فيها العنان لجزء من صوتي بحذر بنهاية شهر آذار عام 2011 ..read more

It took me years to write about one of the smartest and bravest Syrians I ever met, whom I was lucky enough to call a friend. A little over 10 years ago, I wrote an article about Raed Fares and the cartoonist Ahmad Jalal for the pan-Arab newspaper Alhayat. It was the first time they as individuals were featured in a news report, after the posters they made in the northern Syrian town of Kafranbel went viral and were covered in international media, even gracing the walls of some foreign diplomatic missions in the region. I did the interview via Skype, as I was in London then finishing my maste ..read more

أمشي في مدينة ألمانية نائية وأنا أستمع لأغاني المهرجانات، في تحدي لقرارات هاني شاكر بالتحكم بذائقتنا الموسيقية، وفي الوقت نفسه لبث الحياة في هدوء البلدة المُوحشة.. قررت مشاركة هذه اللحظات السوريالية، من هدوء خارجي مُطبق يتخلله أغاني شعبية راقصة تنبعث من هاتفي، مع من يتابعني عبر “الانستغرام”، لتأتيني رسالة من شخص يضع حرف د. قبل اسمه، لم اتواصل معه قبلا ولا أعرفه. يخبرني صاحب الدال دون مقدمات بأن وجهي يبدو “مُتعباً” وبأنني أحتاج “لفيلر وبروفايلو”، أقرأ رسالته عدّة مرّات محاولة اكتشاف مصدر وقاحته والثقة والصلاحية التي اعتقد أنه يملكها ليعطي لنفسه الحق بأن يُحاضر بامرأة عن شكلها وتجاعيد وجهها الش ..read more

In April 2013, I visited Raqqa for the first time in my life, a month after it was taken by anti-Assad rebel forces and nine months before it fell to Islamic State group (IS), who would use it as the base of their so-called ‘caliphate’. Like my city Idlib, Raqqa had been systematically neglected by the Syrian government, its people faced what could be described as racism, and were known as “Shawaya“, or semi-sedentary, a term used pejoratively to imply naivety and simplicity. My best friend Amer is Raqqawi, and we had been planning a trip to his hometown for more than a decade. Whil ..read more

Three years ago I was a newly arrived refugee in the UK, on the verge of losing my largely US-funded job because my US vetting had been held for almost a year without any response. Vetting is the process of performing a background check on someone to approve paying them, however, the vetting applied by the organisations funded by the American State Department mainly involves checking for any ‘terror’ relations. With the non-US funding I was receiving coming to a close, and my project due to become funded solely by the US, I was freaking out. I applied for every job I found online, even those ..read more