Islamic traces in Portugal’s past
AL ARABY (13/6/2019) Last year, Lisbon’s Islamic Community celebrated its 50th anniversary. The community was established by migrants in the 1960s, but Islam has much more ancient roots in Portugal. “Islam is in Portugal’s soul,” said the Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa while standing at the entrance of the Central Mosque of Lisbon for the […]
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Where Christians pray facing Mecca
QANTARA (27/5/2019) Archaeologists in Mertola have spent the last 40 years looking for traces of Portugalʹs Islamic past. What they found shows that Islam is not alien to Europe and has in fact deeply influenced Portuguese history and culture. When archaeologist Claudio Torres first visited Mertola, a small town in the south of Portugal, he […]
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Echoes of al-Andalus: The Portuguese town celebrating its forgotten Islamic past
MIDDLE EAST EYE (23/5/2018) An imposing building with cylindrical towers stands out on the steep hill of Mertola, a southern Portuguese town on the banks of the Guadiana river, not far from the Spanish border. Is it a church with a mihrab? Or a mosque with a cross? The whitewashed building with horseshoe arches is […]
Read →Music and art help Yazidi genocide survivors to heal
EQUAL TIMES (1/7/2019) In an art therapy session for Yazidi survivors, a girl drew a portrait of her friend who committed suicide to avoid rape while under Da’esh (the so-called Islamic State, or IS) captivity. Another one drew a butterfly because her biggest wish, she explained, was to be able to fly away. These girls […]
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Newroz brings hope of a brighter tomorrow, and reminders of dark past, in Iraqi Kurdistan
EQUAL TIMES (27/3/2019) On 20 March 2019, families and groups of friends gathered at sunset in the mountains surrounding Sulaymaniya in Iraqi Kurdistan. Wearing traditional Kurdish clothes, many sat on picnic blankets, some danced to the sound of popular music, while others gathered to talk around bonfires. With the Kurdish New Year of 2719 fast-approaching, […]
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In Jordan, Some Refugee Fathers Find a Place to Be Vulnerable
NEWS DEEPLY (26/3/2019) Humanitarian aid organizations tend to view men as more capable of coping with hardship and often overlook them as a vulnerable population of refugees, writes Marta Vidal. One group in Jordan is trying to change that. Each week, a group of 15 or so refugee men meet at a community center in East […]
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Desert green: Jordanians on frontline of climate change turn to permaculture
MIDDLE EAST EYE (23/3/2019) Olive, lemon and palm trees provide shade over the small garden where Abu ElHajj recently started growing carrots, tomatoes, beans and herbs. Surrounded by arid cliffs and a harsh desert landscape, it seems an unlikely place to start cultivating food. Facing drought and rising temperatures, Jordan is on the frontline of climate change. Overgrazing […]
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After fleeing conflict at home, African refugees battle racism in Jordan
EQUAL TIMES (22/3/2019) “There is war in Sudan. Many people are getting killed, women raped, men beaten. In Jordan, we just stay at home but it also feels like war. Discrimination. Not being able to work. It’s just like war,” says Abdul*, who fled Darfur in 2010. He is among the more than 4,000 Sudanese […]
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Tourists, tourists everywhere
NEW INTERNATIONALIST (MARCH 2019) Lurdes Magalhães no longer sees her neighbours, she only sees tourists. The neighbourhood chatter has been replaced by the sound of suitcase wheels on the cobblestones. Tourism is booming in Porto, Portugal’s second largest city, where visitors now outnumber residents 8 to 1 – a higher ratio than Barcelona or […]
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Framing Hope: Refugee Children in Jordan Explore Analogue Photography
LOMOGRAPHY MAGAZINE (5/2/2019) Forced to flee war with their families and to leave their homes, Iraqi and Syrian youth living in Jordan saw their childhood disrupted by displacement. But their photos still manage to capture the beauty that surrounds them: olive trees, smiles, flowers, and rays of light. In the autumn of 2018, eighteen children […]
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