Three Main bloggers are interviewed about the new power of blogs in the Middle East countries. freedom of speech and expression. Speakers: Dr Mina Nima, Nir T. Boms, Ammar Abdulhamid. 3 bloggers and media specialists: an Iranian, a Syrian and an Israeli. February 2009 – Sciences Po. Paris.
Continue reading “Cyber dissidents: Fighting for a new battleground”
Newsweek Jun 10, 2007 8:00 PM EDT
In the two years since he started writing political commentary on his Web site, Syrian blogger Ammar Abdulhamid has called President Bashar Assad a thug, a dictator, Mr. Bean, the village idiot and Fredo Corleone—the bumbling mob-family brother from “The Godfather.” A 41-year-old novelist and the son of Syria’s most-celebrated screen actress, Abdulhamid wants Assad’s regime replaced by an elected government. Like hundreds of other dissidents in the Arab world, he began blogging with bluntness during a brief window of liberalization that opened after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But geography sets him apart: Abdulhamid writes from his home outside Washington, D.C., having been forced into exile by the Syrian government in 2005. In recent months, he has watched as regimes from Tunisia to Iran jailed bloggers and intimidated others into ditching their keyboards. Now he’s working with another Arab blogger to establish a group to protect the dissenters. “If the regimes are allowed to shut us out of the blogosphere, we have nothing left,” he tells NEWSWEEK. Continue reading “Unwanted Attention”
The issue of the recent interview I gave to Ynet continues to generate enough controversy it seems that my mother was finally asked by journalist to weigh in on it. She did so in a brief interview with the website Middle East transparent.
To no one’s surprise, I hope, my Mom refused to disown me, which is always a good thing I guess. Thanks Mom. “My son is free in his political stances.” She also said. “I have never tried to impose any opinion on him.” Very true. Unfortunately though, she has to bear some of the burden associated with my own opinions. Sorry Mom. Continue reading “The Heretic’s Mother, and Other Heretical Notions!”
Yitzhak Benhorin
WASHINGTON – In a national referendum held by late Syrian President Hafez Assad in 1998, only 219 people voted against the government. One of them was Ammar Abdulhamid, 40, a Syrian opposition activist, exiled from Damascus in 2005 and currently awaiting political asylum in the United States. Continue reading “Towards a democratic Syria!”
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 