Print journalist covering MENA. Bylines in @CSmonitor @Newlinesmag @AJEnglish @TIME @newhumanitarian and others. Formerly AJE features correspondent for MENA
On the move
Joined November 2013
- Tweets27.2K
- Following5.2K
- Followers13.3K
- Likes62.3K
Pinned Tweet
"In south #Lebanon, home is inseparable from the land and the communities it sustains. Years of aggression by #Israel have forged a collective resolve among residents to remain rooted there."
This is a 🧵about my latest story for @inkstickmedia below:
inkstickmedia.com/fear-loss-…
Mat Nashed retweeted
Dozens were killed and injured in intense airstrikes on Nyala, South Darfur, Monday evening. The Sudanese army has escalated air operations, targeting RSF positions, commanders' homes, and infrastructure in an unprecedented aerial campaign.
sudantribune.com/article/320…
#Sudan #Nyala #Darfur #SudanCrisis #RSF
Mat Nashed retweeted
The current onslaught on the last remnants of independent media in Egypt, even within its highly closed system, is unprecedented. Both Maatsadash and Mada Masr published very serious reports and more or less got off the hook. Why now? I have no answer, just theories:
- A new sheriff in town, controlling the security apparatus and sees things differently.
- What is planned to happen in Egypt politically over the coming months or years necessitates a complete media gag.
Mat Nashed retweeted
Mat Nashed retweeted
As Attalah told me last week, Mada Masr had in fact dillgently sought to obtain licencing and was denied--a tactic to keep independent media like hers in a perpetual grey zone until they are deemed to have overstepped. thetimes.com/article/a4b9e07…
Following an absolute farcical trial that makes a mockery of the rule of law, an Egyptian court has fined @Linaattalah LE 3 million and ordered the closure of @MadaMasr, Egypt's leading independent media outlet, relied on by the world's diplomats, researchers, and scholars.
Mat Nashed retweeted
Lina was detained after the court rejected to hear our defense, appointed another lawyer despite 8 of our lawyers being present, then issued a snap judgment that comes with a 3 million pound fine and the closure of our website.
Mada Masr Editor-in-Chief Lina Attalah was fined LE3 million by the New Cairo Misdemeanor Court, which convicted her on charges of managing an unlicensed website, issuing an order for the website’s closure. Attalah was taken into custody after the issue of the ruling.
Tuesday’s session at the ninth circuit of the New Cairo Misdemeanor Court, presided over by judge Mohamed Mubarak, was temporarily suspended for deliberations after Attalah’s defense counsel requested time to review the case file.
After the court returned from deliberations, the judge ordered the courtroom cleared of everyone except Attalah and her defense counsel, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights’ executive director Hossam Bahgat, who was also present, told Mada Masr. The room then filled with plainclothes officers and guards, with a National Security Agency officer in attendance, he added.
The presiding judge and a Supreme State Security Prosecution representative returned to the session and the judge announced that the court has decided to stand by its rejection of all the procedural arguments presented by the defense, including requests to bring in any documentation or hear any witnesses.
The judge then asked the defense team to present its plea. The counsel insisted that it would not submit a plea as long as its requests were unanswered by the court.
The judge then abruptly asked for a lawyer unknown to any member of the defense counsel to be brought in, “in a move that astonished all those present,” said Bahgat, and announced that the court decided to appoint a lawyer for Attalah.
At that point, all members of the defense counsel cried out to reject the court’s appointment of a lawyer when the eight chosen lawyers were present. Attalah herself spoke to say she did not accept the court-appointed lawyer acting on her behalf, an objection the judge refused to have recorded in the session’s minutes.
"In an even more shocking move,” said Bahgat, the judge himself began to log down the requests of the court-appointed lawyer, without the lawyer having said a word. The judge then read out the conviction amid shouts and protests from the defense counsel.
The judge sentenced Attalah to the maximum possible penalty: a LE3 million fine, the closure of Mada Masr’s website and the confiscation of its property.
Security personnel then surrounded Attalah, lifted her off the ground and took her out of the courtroom, where she remains in custody in the courthouse.
Mat Nashed retweeted
Following an absolute farcical trial that makes a mockery of the rule of law, an Egyptian court has fined @Linaattalah LE 3 million and ordered the closure of @MadaMasr, Egypt's leading independent media outlet, relied on by the world's diplomats, researchers, and scholars.
Mat Nashed retweeted
If 38 percent of people straight up admit they’re bigoted against Muslims, surely the number of people who won’t admit it is even higher. Impossible to examine this race without calling attention to the role Islamophobia has played in it.
New Michigan poll by MSU, by YouGov: ippsr.msu.edu/news/msu-poll-…
Benson leads 53.3% to 40.9% for governor.
El-Sayed is 48% to 45.5% for Senate.
"About 38% of voters say a Muslim candidate would make them less likely to offer support."
Mat Nashed retweeted
No, the Dahiye Doctrine he coauthored is much more than this: it represents an outright war crime. It also regards civilians in “supportive areas” as legitimate targets. It’s not just about blowing up buildings; it’s focused on eliminating people, non combatants, as well.
Mat Nashed retweeted
Et la France reste silencieuse face au rôle des Emirats Arabes Unis dans le conflit, y compris dans l'envoi de combattants colombiens à El Fasher par une entreprise émiratie proche des plus hauts niveaux du gouvernement émirati: blogs.mediapart.fr/hrw/blog/…
A year ago, El-Fasher, the historic capital of Darfur, was taken by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The city was the scene of mass crimes against civilian populations, targeted on an ethnic basis.
On this painful day, our heart is with the people of Sudan. France bows to the memory of the victims.
Our compassion is accompanied by a constant determination to act to break the cycle of impunity in Sudan.
This was predictable.
Angry protests broke out in Sudan's Atbara today as citizens blocked roads and burned tyres over skyrocketing public transport fares. The unrest highlights a deepening economic crisis marked by severe fuel shortages and surging inflation.
sudantribune.com/article/320…
#Sudan #Atbara #EconomicCrisis #Protests
From Serbia to Brazil, we are reminded that grassroots politics - led by and for the youth -- can instigate real structural change.
This is why autocratic and reactionary regimes devote so much time and energy to repressing and controlling this demographic.
Out of fear.
We live in a word where our so-called pundits -- which command so much airtime -- celebrate ignorance and arrogance like its somehow a strength.
No wonder the world has lost all trust in the media. Those tasked with informing us won't even inform themselves.
Mat Nashed retweeted
Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi's unprecedented decision has significant implications for Egypt's political landscape, the balance of power within the regime and the military's influence over Egypt's people.
Read @AAboudouh's (@CH_MENAP) latest analysis for Chatham House.
Expert comment | bit.ly/3W4snCU |
Mat Nashed retweeted
Sudan’s Emergency Lawyers group has proposed establishing urgent relief centers across the country following warnings from Western nations about an impending famine. Around 19.5 million people in Sudan are currently facing acute food insecurity.
sudantribune.com/article/320…
#Sudan #Famine #HumanitarianCrisis
Mat Nashed retweeted
As more RSF defect, the sanitation campaign will continue in earnest.
Soon even Hemedti, we'll be told, was just a pawn - and the RSF will rejoin the SAF with immunity.
After all, they are not each others' greatest threat/greater enemy. Civilians are.
#KeepEyesOnSudan
#Sudan
Mat Nashed retweeted
I know up is down these days but serenading the UN for a position when you undermined the same institution and rejected the UN Panel of Experts’ findings on UAE links to the RSF to run cover for your government’s calamitous role in Sudan’s war is an outrage and an insult.
I've spent much of my life in and around the @UN. What stays with me most is its people: colleagues who, in the world's hardest places, deliver food and medicine, protect civilians and help parties take the first steps towards peace.
The UN was never meant to agree with the world. It was built to help the world agree. This UN Day, I remain confident in what the United Nations can achieve - and in the future we can build when it acts early, supports its personnel, and measures success by what changes on the ground. #UNDay
Mat Nashed retweeted
From Nyala to Omdurman, hunger is spreading as prices soar, the rainy season fails, medicines run short, and healthcare services deteriorate.
The deadly triangle of hunger, disease, and war will continue to claim lives unless peace is achieved and this war ends. #KeepEyesOnSudan
Nothing epitomizes #Sudan 's war more than the trend of RSF defectors warmly returning back to SAF while SAF weaponizes the death penalty against brave journalists, accusing them of enemies of the state
It's a clear admission that SAF believes that it alone constitutes the state
RSF defectors are also aggravating the delicate balance of interests under the SAF's umbrella.
We are gradually seeing a landscape of increased fragmentation, beginning with the RSF and likely also to occur within the SAF.
I warned about this at the start of the war.
This is another big lose for the RSF which is eroding from the inside out. The battlefield reality is slowly but steadily shifting, but policy responses to the conflict from outside are not nearly as responsive. They are trying to solve a conflict that existed 12 months ago, not the one they are facing today.
