Canadian-Egyptian journalist Mohamed Fahmy for a gripping evening of stories from his hotly anticipated book, The Marriott Cell
Date/Time: Nov 21 2016, 7:30 pm to 10:00 pm
Vancouver, Frederic Wood TheatreCost: $26.00
Find tickets: here
Join award-winning, Canadian-Egyptian journalist Mohamed Fahmy for a gripping evening of stories from his hotly anticipated book, The Marriott Cell, in which he documents his wrongful incarceration in Cairo’s maximum-security Scorpion Prison, and his subsequent battle for justice.
Part thriller, part political commentary, and part celebration of the power of journalism, The Marriott Cell is a profoundly moving depiction of one man fighting for freedom.
More about the book:
On the night of December 29, 2013, Egyptian security forces, in a dramatic raid on the Marriott Hotel, seized Fahmy (Canadian-Egyptian Bureau Chief for Al Jazeera English) and two of his colleagues, Peter Greste and Baher Mohamed, accusing them of fabricating news as members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Their trials became a global cause célèbre condemned as a travesty. But Fahmy also never stopped being a journalist: inside Scorpion he found himself cheek by jowl with notorious Muslim Brotherhood leaders, Al Qaeda fighters, and ISIS sympathizers. Always intrepid, he took advantage of the situation to "interview" the Brotherhood about their aims, gaining exclusive insight into the geopolitical feuds between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE on one hand and Qatar and its allies, including Turkey on the other—interviews that led him to sue his former employer, Al Jazeera, from prison. The complex power brokering of Middle Eastern and Western governments left three men trapped in a web he describes as "Global McCarthyism." But at the heart of the book is an inspiring story of two strong women: Fahmy's wife, Marwa Omara, who used every means possible to fight for his release, bravely risking her safety; and his courageous international human-rights lawyer, Amal Clooney, who championed his battle for freedom.
More about the author:
Mohamed Fahmy, a dual Canadian-Egyptian citizen lives in Vancouver and works as an adjunct professor at UBC. He has reported on the Middle East and North Africa for CNN, the LA Times, and BBC. In 2011 he and his CNN associates were honored with a Peabody Award for the network's coverage of the Arab Spring; he also co-authored the photo documentary Egyptian Freedom Story. In 2012 he won The Tom Renner Investigative Reporting Award for producing the CNN Freedom Project documentary series Death in the Desert, which exposed the trafficking of Sub-Sahara Africans to Israel through Sinai-Egypt. He was appointed Al Jazeera English Bureau Chief in 2013. He is the recipient of the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom Award from UNESCO. He and his wife, Marwa Omara, founded the Fahmy Foundation NGO in 2015, dedicated to providing financial assistance and advocating on behalf of imprisoned journalists and photographers around the world.
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