Category Announcements

Free Fouad Rally at Saudi Embassy in Washington

Demanding the release of detained Saudi blogger Fouad Al Farhan, the Hands Across the Middle East Support Alliance (HAMSA) has called for a vigil today in front of the Saudi Embassy in Washington DC from 13:00-14:45. If you cannot attend, please take a moment to join over 1,200 other people and send a letter to Saudi officials calling for Fouad’s release.

On a related note, all bloggers are invited to participate in “Fouad’s Week,” a week long event in which we are going to embrace “We Are All Fouads” as a slogan. The event will take place between Saturday Feb 9th and Friday Feb 15th. You can read more on the goals of this event and how you can take part here.

Back (sort of)

Done with the finals and back to blogging. I will probably spend most of my spring break here in Riyadh because I have some stuff to do. I miss my family and friends in the east, but I’m not complaining. On Monday, I will be attending a course in patient education at the lectures auditorium of King Abdulaziz Historical Center. As for the rest of the week, I will be hanging out with friends and doing some press interviews. I will leave town next Sunday, relax for a few days in the EP, and then get back here for the start of the 2nd semester.

Eid Mubarak

Wishing you all a peaceful and prosperous Eid, enjoyed with your family and friends. May Allah accept your deeds and forgive your lapses.

The Eid header shows my cousins Mohammed and Zainab, and my brother Hadi, playing and having fun during the same time last year.

Off to Beirut

Next Saturday I will be flying to Beirut, Lebanon to participate at the 2nd Arab Free Press Forum, a media conference organized by the World Association of Newspapers and An-Nahar daily. The conference will provide an overview of the latest press developments in the Arab world, from obstructive government policies, to case studies of newspapers that combine editorial independence with commercial success, to the rise of blogging and the role blogs play on the Arab media scene of today.

I will be speaking on the second day of the conference on a discussion panel titled “Blogs, an Alternative Way of Telling the News.” I’m humbled to be joined on the panel by Egyptian A-list blogger Wael Abbas, Jordanian blogger Mohammed Azraq, and Wadih Tueni, IT Manager of An-Nahar. The panel is moderated by Egyptian human rights lawyer Mohammed Abdelfattah.

It will be my first time to speak in a conference so I’m excited and nervous but I’m also looking forward to it. I hope I will be able to update the blog from Beirut, but I read that using the internet in Lebanese hotels is outrageously expensive. If any of you will be in Beirut at the same time and would like to meet up, drop me a line and we will see if we can pull something off.

Suggestions Box

comments_boxMy friend Carol Fleming has recently moved her excellent blog from MySpace to WordPress. In case you don’t know, Carol’s blog offers some really interesting views on Saudi Arabia through the eyes of a former US diplomat who is now married to a Saudi and living in Riyadh. She has a lot of good ideas and I thought I would steal one of them: is there any topic that you would like to read more about on Saudi Jeans? Mirela, one of my readers, has asked me to write about handicapped people, accessibility, religion and marriage. What about you? You can leave a comment below, contact me here, or email me: ahmed at saudijeans dot org.

Job at MBC for Women

Middle East Broadcasting Corporation, or simply MBC, are looking for a woman to work on online community development for the imatter project which focuses on empowering women across the Arab World. I’m posting this because I thought some fellow female bloggers might be interested in getting this job, especially that the job description goes well with what they are already doing with their blogs. If you would like to apply please follow the instructions posted here, and let me know as I might be able to help.