A link across borders
THE NATIONAL (10/1/2020) The dusty chairs at the Amman train station are empty. There are no departures today. Vintage carriages line up on the tracks waiting for passengers, but the last train to Syria departed a decade ago. “When I travelled to Syria by train, I was just a child – I was this tall,” […]
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Reviving the Hejaz railway with a park
AL-MONITOR (4/12/2019) The century-old Hijaz Railway crosses Amman from north to south. Children play close by, jumping over the track that once connected Jordan’s capital to Syria, Palestine and Saudi Arabia. It’s been almost a decade since the last train to Syria departed from Amman’s train station. With the railway largely abandoned, families stroll along the line built […]
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“Ideas cannot be killed with weapons” – remembering Raed Fares
QANTARA DW (22/11/2019) “Black Friday Special Offer“ read a banner held by activists in Kafranbel, a small town in northern Syria. “Bring your enemy and come to fight in Syria for free“. When the Syrian uprising against the authoritarian regime of Bashar al-Assad began in 2011, Kafranbel protesters displayed eye-catching messages on a weekly basis. “ASSad is the source of […]
Read →Reading for social change in Jordan
THE NATIONAL (17/11/2019) Sitting at her desk in one of her three offices in Amman, Rana Dajani says she wears many hats – or rather, many scarves. “I am a mother, a teacher, a scientist, a social entrepreneur and a feminist. But instead of hats I wear scarves,” says Dajani, who sees hers as a metaphor for her many […]
Read →Yazidis: o genocídio esquecido (2/2)
FUMAÇA (21/11/2019) O que mais assusta na viagem entre Erbil, a capital da região curda do Iraque, e Dohuk, perto da fronteira da Síria, é a forma como o Majed conduz. O rádio do carro toca música popular curda com o volume no máximo e ele tira as mãos do volante para bater palmas e […]
Read →Yazidis: o genocídio esquecido (1/2)
FUMAÇA (7/11/2019) Muito antes do mundo conhecer a palavra genocídio, inventada em 1943 pelo advogado judeu polaco Raphael Lemkin, para descrever as tentativas nazis de exterminar os judeus, os yazidis – uma comunidade religiosa com origens no Médio Oriente – já usavam a palavra firman para se referir às perseguições que sofreram durante séculos. Em agosto de 2014, o autoproclamado […]
Read →Crimes sem honra
EXPRESSO (10/8/2019) Kifaya tinha 16 anos quando a família decidiu que devia morrer. O irmão mais velho amarrou-a à cadeira da cozinha, deu-lhe um copo de água e pediu-lhe para rezar a sua última oração antes de a esfaquear. A jornalista Rana Husseini foi enviada para cobrir o assassinato num dia quente de Verão em […]
Read →‘Our cause is the same’: Teachers unite in demand for respect and a living wage
MIDDLE EAST EYE (28/9/2019) The school bell rings at a quarter past seven in the morning at the al-Rashid primary school in Amman. The day starts as usual with the national anthem and the raising of the Jordanian flag, but things have been a bit different lately. Teachers line up in the schoolyard, but there are […]
Read →Teachers on strike in Jordan demand higher income and ‘dignity’
AL JAZEERA (26/9/2019) Teacher by day, deliveryman by night. In a public secondary school in central Amman, a maths teacher moonlights as a delivery driver outside his schoolroom hours to supplement his income. An Arabic teacher works in a grocery shop. Others drive taxis or give private tuition on the side. Most teachers in the […]
Read →Meet Fado Bicha, Portugal’s queer anti-racist feminist musicians
OPENDEMOCRACY (28.8.2019) 2019 got off to a bad start in Portugal. In January, the leader of a far-right group – who spent 12 years in prison for his role in a racist murder and other hate crimes – was invited to speak on one of Portugal’s most popular TV talk shows. On air, he argued that the country needs a new […]
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