Tuesday Jun 11, 2019
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
POWERHOUSE Arena
28 Adams Street (Corner of Adams & Water Street across from the Archway)
Brooklyn , NY
11201
RSVP encouraged & appreciated.
Please fill out the form at the bottom of this page if you plan on attending. Facebook event found here.
PLEASE NOTE: Submitting an RSVP for this event DOES NOT guarantee entrance. This is a free-access event — entrance will be on a first-come, first-served basis.
About the Event.
A journalist and activist, Ahmed Benchemsi is the Middle East and North Africa Advocacy and Communications Director for Human Rights Watch. The founder, publisher and editor of Morocco’s best-selling weeklies TelQuel and Nishan, and the web-magazine FreeArabs.com, Ahmed was awarded twice Best investigative Journalist in the Arab World and Israel by the European Union.
As a spokesman for Human Rights Watch, Benchemsi has given more than 800 interviews to a wide range of media outlets including Al Jazeera, CNN, PBS, NPR, BBC, and The New York Times. His work has been published in Timemagazine, Newsweek, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, Politico, The Guardian, Le Monde, and other publications. A co-author of “Taking to the streets: The Transformation of Arab Activism” (2014, Johns Hopkins University Press), he has also produced articles for academic institutions and think-tanks, including the National Endowment for Democracy, the Middle East Institute, and the Cato Institute.
For this Salon event—Ahmed Benchemsi will share his story, tell about the death threats, arrests, lawsuits, censorship, and boycotts he faced, and discuss the challenges of being a secular, pro-democracy journalist and human rights activist in a region full of autocratic governments and Islamic fundamentalists. Benchemsi will also share his views on how the Middle East and North Africa are represented in Western media and the biases that sometimes result of sending inexperienced correspondents in the region rather than relying on local hires.
The 30-minute talk will follow with a Q&A, and a slideshow presentation featuring visual stories on the Middle East and North Africa, curated by Ahmed Benchemsi and Visura founder Adriana Teresa Letorney.
About The Speaker.
AHMED BENCHEMSI is the Middle East and North Africa Advocacy and Communications Director for Human Rights Watch. Born in Morocco, Ahmed is also a career journalist and activist. The founder, publisher and editor of Morocco’s best-selling weeklies TelQuel and Nishan, and the web magazine FreeArabs.com, he was awarded twice Best Investigative Journalist in the Arab World by the European Union. Ahmed has been published in Time, Newsweek, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, Le Monde, among other publications. A co-author of Taking to the streets: The Transformation of Arab Activism (2014, Johns Hopkins University Press), he also produced articles for academic institutions and think tanks including the National Endowment for Democracy, the Middle East Institute, and the Cato Institute. He is also regularly interviewed or quoted in media outlets such as CNN, PBS, NPR, BBC, Al Jazeera, The New York Times, and many more. Ahmed has a M.Phil in Political Science from the Paris Institute of Political Studies, and an MA in Developmental Economics from the Sorbonne, and is a fellow at Stanford University’s Program on Arab Reform and Democracy. Ahmed is fluent in Arabic and French.
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