Have pity! Stop going on at us about Turkey

By Elif Kayi

Article awarded with European Young Journalist Award 2009 (previously published on the French online newspaper Mediapart)

OPINION. Some subjects are clear cut. Quite simply, you are either for or you are against. Whatever your views, you do not remain undecided. Indecisiveness concerning these kinds of topics would be dismissed as typical political vacillation. And, in politics, if one is without a clear opinion, one is obliged to keep quiet, thank you very much.

Journalists’ struggles in south Lebanon

By Assaad Thebian

@Assaad Thebian

LEBANON. “We are only allowed to highlight the screams but no solution is applied,” says Mohamad Darwich (United Press and Al-Shark radio), to a group of students and journalists covering south Lebanon addressing the “lack of journalistic fundamental rights”.

Gay in Egypt – the plight of acceptance

Scene taken from the movie "Tol omry" (All my life)

By Hanan Solayman

EGYPT. “All my life I’ve been lonely” or Toul Omry A’yesh le wahdy… a famous song by prominent Egyptian singer Mohamed Abd el-Wahab in the late 1930s that evokes loneliness and difficulty in finding the soul mate. A song that better describes the life of homosexuals in Egypt as Maher Sabry used it as a background melody in his digital film ‘All My Life’ (Toul Omri), the most daring and sexually explicit LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trends) film to ever come about homosexuals in the Arab world in 2008.

“I don’t know if I lost my way or not”

@EMAJMagazine

By Ahmed Esmat Aly

NETHERLANDS. Ismail Ahmed El Mazyen or ‘NINJA’ as his customers call him in Amsterdam, married a Dutch woman, has three kids and makes a living out of catering with halal food.

Halal… inclusion or seclusion?

By Hanan Solayman and Kim Nordberg

NETHERLANDS. Riding the wave of the expanding global halal market industry – estimated to have reached a worth of US$ 580 billion in 2008 – communication arts company KasehDia will hold this November the first World Halal Forum in Europe.

Squatting, the right of living together

By Abdellah Aoussar

@EMAJMagazine

NETHERLANDS. The squatting movement has created a new way of living as it gathers people of different nationalities under the same ceiling and provides a precious chance to live in a melting pot where all differences and stereotyped ideas disappear.

And they lived happily ever after!

By Elsy Melkonian

@Yannick Brusselmans

NETHERLANDS. Driven by romantic incentives like “love is blind” or “love is worth everything we pay”, soul mates from different cultures and religions cross all boundaries for a brand new start, full of challenges.

Rotterdam – right in the middle

By Adi Halfon

NETHERLANDS. Despite a mayor with a migrant background, a close look at Rotterdam reveals a city torn between right wing parties and organizations for migrants. But a closer look shows that everyone is aiming for the same goal.

“Something more than an cleaner”

By Inga Springe

NETHERLANDS. This June, children from Amsterdam’s IMC Weekendschool acted out a crisis situation: what would they do if Amsterdam were flooded? As a big surprise for the children, the mayor of Amsterdam – with the city’s symbolic chain around his neck – suddenly arrived to resolve the emergency with them!

Exposed body, hidden face

By Assaad Thebian

@EMAJMagazine

NETHERLANDS. When most tourists come to Amsterdam and get a map in their hands, the first thing they do is to look up where the Red Light District is. Although the city is packed with tourist sites and beautiful scenes, the sex industry attracts most of the men, and sometimes women.

A long way for Dutch Muslim Party

By Aylin Yazan and Marion Bacher

@EMAJMagazine

NETHERLANDS. The new Dutch Muslim Party (NMP) aims to be a political heaven for Muslims with different backgrounds. Coming November, the NMP wants to challenge Geert Wilders, the Dutch popular anti-Islamic politician, in his own backyard of Venlo.

TV: INTERVIEW WITH THE PARTY LEADER

Integration and radical Islam

By Alessandro Di Maio

@Alessandro Di Maio

@Alessandro Di Maio

Article awarded with Europe is more than you think award, by the Council of Europe and the European Youth Press

NETHERLANDS. How to integrate the new immigrants into Dutch society? Why it is so hard and how come some people on both sides turn radical? Since September 11, 2001, the magic Dutch integration experiment has gone through some changes.

Tougher for irregular migrants

By Elif Kayi and Cristina Rojo

@EMAJMagazine

NETHERLANDS. Between 75.000 and 150.000 irregular migrants live in the Netherlands today. In the past two decades the country has strengthened its immigration policy, increasing the pressure on asylum-seekers and irregular migrants to leave the country.

TV: SCENES OUTSIDE OF A DETENTION CENTER