A Conversation with Mezna Qato and Ala’a Shehabi on MERIP’s 'Paper Trail' Issue

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Dec 19, 2019 Region

A Conversation with Mezna Qato and Ala’a Shehabi on MERIP’s "Paper Trail" Issue

By : Status/الوضع Audio-Visual Podcast Hosts

In this conversation with Mezna Qato and Ala’a Shehabi, Bassam Haddad inquires about MERIP’s recent “Paper Trail” Issue. Mezna and Ala’a address the background, content, and details of the issue and some of the surrounding topics.

Paper Trails: Middle East Report #291


This issue of Middle East Report explores how the Middle East is on the cutting edge of struggles to hide or reveal secret or important documents and paper trails that shape the lives of those across the region.  The issue explores how the powerful utilize secrecy or deception to hide their paper trails from publics and how others weaponize archives and documents to serve their interests.  At the same, time the issue explores how citizens and activists can fight for transparency to uncover the secret documents that hold clues over how they are governed and what is being hidden behind closed doors.  The issue also explores how paper trails can be created through activism that turns the tables on the powerful or can be mined to explore and revive the past.


SUBSCRIBE TO MERIP!

There has never been a better time to subscribe to MERIP. You will receive four copies of our quarterly magazine Middle East Report and have full access to all our new content, plus our entire forty-five-year archive of critical analysis of the region, as well as more perks for subscribers on social media and the MERIP website.  Subscribe today to get instant access to cutting-edge analysis of the Middle East.

Guests


Ala'a Shehabi is a co-founder of Bahrain Watch and works at University College London on a large interdisciplinary project on Lebanon.

Mezna Qato is a historian of the modern Middle East, and co-convenes the “Archives of the Disappeared” Research Network, at the University of Cambridge. She is on the editorial committee of MERIP.

Host


Bassam Haddad is Director of the Middle East Studies Program and Associate Professor at the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs (SPGIA) at George Mason University.





For more from Status/الوضع, visit www.statushour.com and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes!
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Nov 26, 2019 Lebanon
Status/الوضع Audio-Visual Podcast Hosts By :
Status/الوضع Audio-Visual Podcast Hosts

The November Protests in Iran: An Interview with Historian Peyman Jafari

Shahram Aghamir spoke with Peyman Jafari, a historian at Princeton University about the recent wave of protests in Iran.

More Information


On Friday, Nov 15, protests broke out in 30 cities across Iran after a surprise announcement by the government to ration gasoline and raise prices by 50 percent. Some of the protests swiftly became anti-government demonstrations, targeting the Islamic Republic as a whole.

And, as in previous protests, demonstrators utilized Twitter and other social media platforms to organize, to communicate with the outside world and document the heavy-handed response by the state. In the first twenty-four hours, hundreds of images and video clips showed security forces brutally attacking protesters.

Amnesty International Verified video footage as well as eyewitness testimony from people on the ground and information gathered by human rights activists outside Iran reveal a harrowing pattern of unlawful killings by Iranian security forces: At least 106 protesters in 21 cities had been killed as of Wednesday, and Amnesty International believes that the real death toll may be much higher, some reports suggesting as many as 200 fatalities. State media have reported only a handful of protester deaths, plus those of four members of the security forces.

Adding to lethal attacks on the protests, within twenty-four hours, the government used a newly added tool - The Iranian authorities shutdown the internet for 5 days to stop the flow of information to the outside world and to cut off communication among the Iranian people themselves.

NetBlocks, a non-governmental organization that monitors Internet accessibility around the world, has reported that “The ongoing disruption is the most severe recorded in Iran since President Rouhani came to power, and the most severe disconnection tracked by NetBlocks in any country in terms of its technical complexity and breadth."

Peyman Jafari


Peyman Jafari has an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Amsterdam and a Ph.D. in history from Leiden University. He has published a number of monographs, and edited volumes and articles on the 20th-century history of Iran. He has been a visiting scholar at SOAS (London) and Columbia University (New York).

Shahram Aghamir


Shahram Aghamir is a political commentator on issues related to the Middle East for public and alternative media. He is the co-founder and senior producer of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA) on KPFA Radio in Berkeley, California.





For more from Status/الوضع, visit www.statushour.com and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts!