On this special episode, we mark the third anniversary of the day known as Jum‘at al-Karamah, or the Friday of Dignity, on which regime forces massacred unarmed protesters in San‘a's Change Square. The massacre, which is powerfully documented in the Oscar-nominated film Karama Has No Walls, became a turning point in the Yemeni Revolution of 2011. We're screening films about the Revolution as part of our inaugural International Film & Arts Festival. At last weekend's Festival event in Washington, DC, we invited a panel of expert special guests to join us for a discussion of the films, the Revolution, and its aftermath. This episode of the podcast features excerpts from that fantastic discussion panel.
About our guests:
Amal Basha is a prominent human rights activist, and the head of the Sisters' Arab Forum. She was a delegate to Yemen's National Dialogue Conference, and served as spokesperson for the NDC's technical committee. She is also the mother of activist-filmmaker Ammar Basha, whose documentary series Days in the Heart of the Revolution is featured in our Festival, and the aunt of Mohammed Albasha, below.
Mohammed Albasha is the spokesperson for the Yemeni embassy in Washington. He is one of the most visible--and controversial--public faces of the Yemeni state.
Sama'a al-Hamdani is a political analyst and researcher, based in Washington, DC. She writes one of the most respected blogs on Yemeni affairs, and tweets at @Yemeniaty.
Laura Kasinof is a freelance journalist, writer and researcher whose work focuses on the Middle East. She was the Yemen correspondent for the New York Times during the anti-government protests of 2011, as part of the Arab spring. Laura’s first book, Don’t be Afraid of the Bullets, about her experience in Yemen, is to be published in Fall 2014 by Arcade. She tweets at @kasinof.
Nabilah al-Zubair is a prominent Yemeni activist, and served as a delegate to the National Dialogue Conference.