Azad Essa

Johannesburg

Journalist @MiddleEastEye; Author of Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel (Pluto Press); My newsletter: https://t.co/532Fyq3FUZ

Articles

The quiet migration: Why Muslims are leaving India in staggering numbers

4 days ago | middleeasteye.net | Hanan Zaffar |Azad Essa

When *Taufeeq Ahmed boarded a flight from New Delhi to Canada in early 2020, he wasn’t chasing a promotion, a degree or the promise of a better paycheque. Instead, he was trying to leave something behind - a heavy sense of unease that had been quietly building for years, and a fear that had finally become impossible to ignore. “I lived close to Jamia Millia Islamia,” he said, referring to the prominent university in New Delhi where he used to study.
Has Israel manufactured a famine in Gaza?

1 week ago | middleeasteye.net | Azad Essa

The markets are empty. The make-shift hospitals are bare. The water is contaminated. The aid trucks are nowhere in sight. Gaza is being starved, and rights groups say, deliberately. At least 57 children have starved to death since 2 March, and 71,000 children under the age of five are expected to be acutely malnourished over the next eleven months.
Why claims of 'white genocide' in South Africa are cruelly ironic

2 weeks ago | middleeasteye.net | Marco Carnelos |Azad Essa

It was an afternoon of several cruel ironies. With the genocide in Gaza reaching barely fathomable levels of brutality over the past several days, including a UN warning about the imminent deaths of up to 14,000 infants, US President Donald Trump accused South Africa of conducting a “white genocide”. Trump, not known for his deference, flat out asked South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to explain the killings of white farmers in the country.
India's attack on Pakistan is a declaration of Israel-style expansionism

1 month ago | middleeasteye.net | Azad Essa

In the early hours of Wednesday, the Indian army launched a series of air raids on Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The airstrikes hit mosques and madrassas as well as residential complexes, leaving 31 civilians dead, including several children, the Pakistani government said.
Lawyers lament treatment of detained Indian academic Badar Khan Suri

1 month ago | middleeasteye.net | Azad Essa

On 17 March, Badar Khan Suri, the Indian post-doctoral scholar at Georgetown University, was picked up by masked agents from the Department of Homeland Security outside his home in Virginia.
No introspection, only jingoism after Kashmir attack

1 month ago | azadessa.substack.com | Azad Essa

On 22 April, several gunmen opened fire on a group of visitors in the scenic Pahalgam area of Indian-occupied Kashmir. At least 25 people, the majority of whom were Indian tourists, were killed. One Kashmiri and one Nepali were also killed. Several others were also injured. According to the Indian media, the Resistance Front (TRF), a militant group banned by New Delhi, claimed responsibility for the attacks. No one has been able to independently verify this.
The Encampments: A portrait of a protest for Palestine that moved America

1 month ago | middleeasteye.net | Azad Essa

In the early hours of 17 April 2024, hundreds of students quietly set up an encampment in the main quad of Columbia University in Morningside, New York City. Inspired by the actions of the anti-Vietnam war protests of the late 1960s, the students dubbed the lined tents on the lawns of the campus "The Liberated Zone". Student demands were clear.
Inside the campaign to end Microsoft's collaboration with the Israeli army

1 month ago | middleeasteye.net | Azad Essa

It was early 2025, and Ibtihal Aboussad couldn't believe what she had just read. The company at which she had spent the past three years working as a software engineer in the AI department was actively providing the Israeli military with the AI infrastructure to carry out what several leading human rights groups and experts have described as a "genocide" in Gaza.
'They executed him': Palestinian Americans outraged over killing of teen in West Bank

2 months ago | middleeasteye.net | Azad Essa

US citizen Amer Mohammed Saada Rabee was shot 11 times.
US: New Jersey school slammed for 'anti-Palestinian' assignment on activist Mahmoud Khalil

2 months ago | middleeasteye.net | Azad Essa |Ahmed Najar

A New Jersey high school is under fire from parents for an assignment that allegedly used misleading and incorrect information about a high-profile Palestinian student activist currently facing deportation. Educational advocates and parents said the student project was an attempt to manipulate students with false information that did not merely distort the case but also sought to spread dangerous allusions about anti-war protesters demonstrating against Israel's war on Gaza.