Voices of the Middle East and North Africa

On March 29th The Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State will bring together academics, researchers, artists, and filmmakers from seven countries, for a 2-day conference titled "Forty Years & More: International Conference on Iranian Diaspora Studies"

The conference will mark the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution by understanding the ways that Iranians as exiles, immigrants, and as second and third generation hyphenated citizens of their respective nations, have met with both challenges and opportunities of diaspora experience.

Malihe Razazan spoke with Dr. Persis Karim, director of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State about the upcoming conference and the significance of recognizing and understanding the Iranian diaspora

This week, we speak with Ahmad Abu Ertema, a Gaza based journalist and author, and one of the organizers of the Gaza’s Great March of Return, as well as historian Jehad Abu Salim who is also staff member of the American Friends Service Committee about the Great Mach, The impacts of Israel's decade-long blockade of the Gaza strip.

Later in the program, Dr. Persis Karim, the director of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University joins us to talk about the center’s upcoming conference marking the 40th anniversary of the Iranian revolution.

From poster child for colonial struggles in the nineteen fifties and sixties, Algeria has transitioned to a country that is still struggling to perfect its own democratic system fifty years later, trying to attain the long-promised emancipation that so many had died for.

Today, the streets of Algiers and other major cities are filled with passionate and enthusiastic crowds, men and women, made up of mostly people under thirty, demanding their rights to choose their own government and control their own destinies.

After three weeks of huge popular demonstrations by the Algerian people, ailing president Abdelaziz Bouteflika agreed Monday to not run for a fifth straight term, which was the most prominent and urgent demand by the protestors. Today we speak with Professor Thomas Serres of UC Santa Cruz about the current situation and how it echoes the Arab Spring that preceded it as well as the 1988 youth rebellion of Algiers.

This week, we revisit the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean region specifically in Greece, to see where things stand, and the similarities with the refugee and migrant crisis at the US southern border. We speak with Pan Zanetakis, a human rights worker with the Greek organization HumanRights360, and Chicago based Attorney Leena Odeh who spent most of last year working with asylum seekers in Greece.

This week , we speak with exiled Egyptian socialist activist Hossam El-Hamalawy about the legacy of the Arab Spring in his country - and in the middle east and north Africa region. Despite the bleak economic situation and unspeakably ferocious political repression in Egypt, El- Hamalawy explains why he is still hopeful that - in the long term - the revolution will survive and overcome.

This week, we unpack the story of the young Saudi woman Rahaf Mohammed Al Qnun. Rahaf who decided to seek asylum abroad, with writer and analyst Hana Al-Khamri(@hanaalkhamri ).

Later in the program, researcher and former student activist Mohammad PourAbdollah talks to us about the most recent labor protests at the Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane factory in Iran.

Nearly three decades after Omar Al Bashir came to power, the Sudanese regime is facing a formidable challenge posed by a fresh wave of unrest. Popular uprisings are not new to Sudan. This most recent wave of protest over a month ago in the northeastern city of Atbara. Locals took to the streets over a government decision to triple the price of bread, protests swiftly escalated into anti-government rallies, marches and work stoppages rocking several cities and towns, with union and professional associations joining. Protestors are now demanding for Bashir to step down.

According to the Guardian, the government of Omar al-Bashir in Sudan has launched an “alarming” crackdown on journalists. At least five reporters have been detained by the national intelligence security services and are being held at undisclosed locations. Dozens of others have been arrested and held before being released. According to human rights organization, more than 1000 people have been arrested and at least 40 people have been killed.

This week, we continue our conversation with McGill University political scientist Professor Khalid Madani. He tells us more about the regional and international role and response to the current protests, the role of women and the future of this uprising.

Nearly three decades after Omar Al Bashir came to power, the Sudanese regime is facing a formidable challenge posed

by a fresh wave of unrest, which started in the northeastern city of Atbara on December 19. Protests which first erupted over a government decision to triple the price of bread have swiftly escalated into anti-government rallies, marches and work stoppages that have rocked several cities and towns.

Who are the protestors? What are their demands? What role do the civil society groups play in these protests? What has been the regime’s response to the protests? And what is the genesis of the economic crisis that the country is experiencing? We put these question to Kalid Medani of McGill University-

This week, we speak with award-winning Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki about her academy award-nominated film Capernaum, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes film festival in 2018

Later in the program, Issa Golitzen Farajaje joins us to talk about his collaboration with Aswat, the Bay Area's Premier Arab Music Ensemble, to research and perform a concert of Sufi music from the Arab world.

After 4 years of a devastating war in Yemen, this week we delve into the complexities of living with war, through the eyes of a group of Yemeni women. We will hear from them talking about their activism and what roles they took on in their communities and families since the beginning of the war in 2015

But first we discuss the pro-Israel backlash against Palestine activism on US campuses. The backlash is not a new tactic, but in recent years, lawsuits have been increasingly used to intimidate students and faculty and silence any criticism of Israel. So does this backlash look like in the Trump era and is it working?

To talk about that and more, we are joined by Zoha Khalili, attorney with the organization Palestine Legal and Dr. Loubna Qoutami, a post-doctoral fellow at University of California Berkeley and a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement.