Aida Alami
@aidaalami.bsky.social
Reporter at large. Mostly migration/human rights. Words in @CJR, @nytimes, @nybooks and other places. @ColumbiaJourn visiting prof/alum. Board member @AMEJA. Contributor @OurWomenOTG. Travel addict.
After a winter of youth protests and a controversial AFCON triumph, @aidaalami.bsky.social reflects on what it means to root for the Atlas Lions today goldengoal.world/2026/06/23/m...
Morocco: A Winter of Discontent - Golden Goal
After youth protests and a controversial AFCON triumph what does Morocco represent at the World Cup?
goldengoal.world
Early last month, Shihab-Eldin was arrested in Kuwait on the basis of what CPJ calls “vague and overly broad accusations.” I’ve known him to be a reporter who is quick and elegant and resists euphemism, writes @aidaalami.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/analysis/wai...
Waiting for Shihab-Eldin.
Early last month, the journalist was arrested in Kuwait on the basis of what CPJ calls “vague and overly broad accusations.” I’ve known him to be a reporter who is quick and elegant and resists euphem...
cjr.org
In her recent work, Rawya El Chab explores the legacy of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which tore apart the Lebanese Left. With the support of Round Earth Media and the IWMF, and @aidaalami.bsky.social's careful editing, my latest for @hyperallergic.com: hyperallergic.com/rawya-el-cha...
Rawya El Chab Tends to the Wounds of Lebanon's Civil War
The latest segment of her performance series “Crossing the Water” chronicles life under military occupation after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
hyperallergic.com
In Netflix’s plan to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN is left out—to the reported relief of its staffers. Read @aidaalami.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/the_media_to...
A very big deal.
In Netflix’s plan to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN is left out—to the reported relief of its staffers.
cjr.org
In 2025, press freedom came under direct attack. We must not respond to this existential crisis with silence and apathy. Read @aidaalami.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/the_media_to...
In 2025, press freedom came under direct attack.
We must not respond to this existential crisis with silence and apathy.
cjr.org
www.cjr.org/the_media_to... “I fear that press freedom is slowly and quietly eroding while institutional silence and apathy do nothing to protect it. Freedom is never lost at once.” @aidaalami.bsky.social
In 2025, press freedom came under direct attack.
We must not respond to this existential crisis with silence and apathy.
cjr.org
Powerful and poignant piece by @aidaalami.bsky.social in Columbia Journalism Review on how Western legacy media covers Gaza | www.cjr.org/the_media_to...
In her latest piece for The @newyorker.com, @aidaalami.bsky.social, James Madison Visiting Professor on First Amendment Issues, tells the story of Leqaa Kordia, who demonstrated outside Columbia’s campus gates and remains the last participant still detained by ICE: www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
The Last Columbia Protester in ICE Detention
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2016, has been detained in Texas for the past eight months.
newyorker.com
Had Hamdi’s arrest happened anywhere else in the world, it'd "spark a collective outcry," @aidaalami.bsky.social writes in @columjournreview.bsky.social. “But in this case, the person targeted is pro-Palestine. The muted reaction is a troubling public response to a troubling act of state power.”
Twin assaults on press freedom.
The ICE detention of Sami Hamdi closely follows the deportation of Mario Guevara.
cjr.org
The ICE detention of Sami Hamdi closely follows the deportation of Mario Guevara. Read @aidaalami.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/the_media_to...
Twin assaults on press freedom.
The ICE detention of Sami Hamdi closely follows the deportation of Mario Guevara.
cjr.org
Proximity to power is not the only way—or even the best way—to report on government, by @aidaalami.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/the_media_to...
The press leaves the Pentagon.
Proximity to power is not the only way—or even the best way—to report on government.
cjr.org
Column: Detainees at ICE facilities may be more vulnerable to extreme heat exposure than people housed in federal, state and county prisons, according to a Washington Post analysis.
Column | ICE detainees face greater risk from extreme heat than most prisoners
A Washington Post analysis found that ICE detention centers experience an average of 29 days of dangerous heat per year.
wapo.st
Do you know the name, Leqaa Kordia? She’s the last Columbia protester in ICE detention. Read her story. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
The Last Columbia Protester in ICE Detention
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2016, has been detained in Texas for the past eight months.
newyorker.com
Leqaa Kordia faces deportation for protesting the war in Gaza, in which she lost more than 175 of her relatives. She is the last Columbia protestor still in ICE detention. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
The Last Columbia Protester in ICE Detention
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2016, has been detained in Texas for the past eight months.
newyorker.com
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2016, has been detained in Texas for the past eight months. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
The Last Columbia Protester in ICE Detention
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2016, has been detained in Texas for the past eight months.
newyorker.com
Leqaa Kordia—not a Columbia student but “a simple Palestinian girl,” as she describes herself—is the last remaining campus protester still in detention from the Trump Administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the U.S. Read her story: https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/mGwzBs
Leqaa Kordia—not a Columbia student but “a simple Palestinian girl,” as she describes herself—is the last remaining campus protester still in detention from the Trump Administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the U.S.
The Last Columbia Protester in ICE Detention
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2016, has been detained in Texas for the past eight months.
newyorker.com
journalist @aidaalami.bsky.social interviewed on the GenZ protests in Morocco and their "very basic and reasonable demands" and regime efforts to "co-opt the movement." www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx3A...
Morocco public figures urge king to act after youth protests • FRANCE 24 English
YouTube video by FRANCE 24 English
youtube.com
What Could We Be Doing in Gaza? Urgent ideas to defend press freedom in the world's deadliest place for journalists.! 🦋 www.cjr.org/feature/urge...
Urgent Ideas for Defending Press Freedom in Gaza
Letters, condemnations, and Israeli court cases have failed to change the world’s deadliest place for journalists. We’ve cast out for a new approach.
cjr.org
Fascinating and deeply reported piece from Aida Alami in @nybooks.com on what makes a uniquely Muslim American imam, and how they are helping themselves and their community navigate the demands of a secularizing, pluralistic, and Islamophobic country.
The New Imams | Aida Alami
For years I have been working on a documentary film about young Muslims in France, centered on the 2017 trial that convicted a police officer of killing a
nybooks.com
“Imams in the US,” writes @aidaalami.bsky.social, “[need] to guide their congregants through civic life in a country whose dominant culture is secularizing, pluralistic, and systematically Islamophobic.”
The New Imams | Aida Alami
For years I have been working on a documentary film about young Muslims in France, centered on the 2017 trial that convicted a police officer of killing a
buff.ly
"The task of imams in the US is markedly different: to guide their congregants through civic life in a country whose dominant culture is secularizing, pluralistic, and systematically Islamophobic." Excellent piece by @aidaalami.bsky.social @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...
The New Imams | Aida Alami
For years I have been working on a documentary film about young Muslims in France, centered on the 2017 trial that convicted a police officer of killing a
nybooks.com
From "The Radical Courage of Noor Abdalla" by @aidaalami.bsky.social for the @newyorker.com. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
An enormous tree has fallen and I'm hoping to see a definitive appreciation. I was privileged to know Ngugi late in his career. He and I did a book discussion together at UC Irvine in 2011, we've shared an agent, and stayed in touch. A big loss. lithub.com/ngugi-wa-thi...
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Giant of Kenyan Letters
Just thirty kilometres outside of Nairobi, off the Nakuru highway, the land becomes flatter and less populated. An unassuming field beyond Limuru gives way to several isolated buildings behind a ru…
lithub.com
“To the students here today, you spoke when silence was the easier choice,” Noor Abdalla said. “You stood firmer when these institutions failed you. True justice and education must include the freedom to dissent, the right to speak out for human rights, and the courage ...”
The Radical Courage of Noor Abdalla
How the wife of Mahmoud Khalil has navigated becoming a new mother while fighting for her husband’s freedom.
newyorker.com
Noor Abdalla was eight months pregnant when her husband, Mahmoud Khalil, was arrested, in March. She hasn’t seen him since, and now has a one-month-old son. nyer.cm/b7u1tIk
Wonderfully written by @aidaalami.bsky.social , an empathetic piece on an enraging situation
The New Yorker@newyorker.com · last yr.Noor Abdalla was eight months pregnant when her husband, Mahmoud Khalil, was arrested, in March. She hasn’t seen him since, and now has a one-month-old son. nyer.cm/b7u1tIk
"In terms of journalism, I am equally as horrified institutionally as I am inspired individually" Very poignant interview by @aidaalami.bsky.social with Omar El Akkad www.cjr.org/the_media_to...
Q&A: Omar El Akkad on the War in Gaza and the Failure of Journalistic Institutions
A conversation with the author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.
cjr.org
