A day of hell in Aleppo
I honestly think that the war in Syria will never end. I have been photographing the war in my native Aleppo for three years now. Last Thursday was one of the most hellish days that my city has endured.
I took the images of the toddler rescue in the Al-Kalasa residential district, controlled by the rebels and besieged by regime forces. When the air raid struck, I was some hundred meters away, with the civil defense vehicles. I ran toward the point of impact to shoot with my camera.
Continue reading on AFP Correspondent
On municipal elections in Lebanon and the prospects of change
In a few weeks’ time, Lebanon’s fourth round of municipal elections since 1998 are scheduled to be held. This event highlights three key and interrelated challenges facing the country. The first is whether the ruling political elite will actually decide to hold municipal elections. If held, the second challenge concerns whether elected council members will adhere to a plan of action that addresses people’s local needs. The third challenge is getting people to vote for those who will serve them rather than those who will represent the interests of the political establishment. These issues are interlinked. The decisions of political elites regarding holding elections are not unrelated to their attempt to control the outcome—namely, getting their allies on municipal councils. In order to win the elections, first, alliances will have to be struck between parties and large families, often at the expense of any developmental programs or vision. Second, voters will have to be carried to the ballot box on a wave of sectarian and divisive discourse, undermining the element of accountability in voting.
Continue reading on Jadaliyya
Meals and showers: small consolations in solitary
The scariest part of imprisonment in Iran is solitary confinement. Prisoners endure such harrowing silence and loneliness, they wish for the return of their interrogator – often the same interrogator who has humiliated or even tortured them.
One of the biggest agonies of solitary is when a prisoner has to answer the call of nature. There are no toilets in the solitary cells. Prisoners have to bang on the metal door and shout that they have to use the toilet, but often nobody answers.
Hadi, a prisoner at Evin Prison, recounts how in his last days in solitary he lost his mental focus. “I felt that I had lost myself, my name and my identity without a trace,” he says. “I was obsessed with the idea that nobody outside those walls remembered me. I was sure that even my mother had forgotten all about me.”
Continue reading on IranWire
