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Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson

Credit Steve Barrett

International correspondent Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson is based in Cairo and covers the Arab world for NPR from the Middle East to North Africa. Her reports can be heard on NPR's award-winning programs including Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

In 2006, Nelson opened the NPR Kabul Bureau. During the following three and a half years, she gave listeners an in-depth sense of life inside Afghanistan, from the increase in suicides among women in a tribal society that sees them as second class citizens, to the growing interference of Iran and Pakistan in Afghan affairs and the impact of Western policies in the region. For her coverage of Afghanistan, she won a Peabody award, Overseas Press Club award and Gracie in 2010.

Nelson came to NPR in 2006, after spending more than two decades as a newspaper reporter. She served as Knight Ridder's Middle East Bureau Chief from 2002 to 2005 where she specialized in covering Iran. As a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Nelson was sent on extended assignment to Iran and Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Nelson spent three years as an editor and reporter for Newsday and was part of the team that won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for covering the crash of TWA flight 800. She also spent time at the the Orange County Register covering Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

A graduate of the University of Maryland, Nelson speaks Farsi, Dari, and German. She is married to long-time reporter Erik Nelson and they have a son.

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Africa
1:06 pm
Thu April 26, 2012

At Last, Egypt Settles On Presidential Candidates

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Credit Khaled Desouki / AFP/Getty Images
Amr Moussa, the front-runner in the Egyptian presidential race, speaks during a press conference in Cairo on Apr. 22. The country's election commission said Thursday that Moussa and 12 other candidates are eligible to compete in next month's election.
Credit Amr Nabil / AP
Ahmed Shafiq, who served as prime minister under Hosni Mubarak, will be allowed to take part in Egypt's presidential race. The country's election commission said Thursday that he is eligible, one day after he had been ruled ineligible. In this photo, he's shown speaking at a news conference in February 2011.
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Originally published on Thu April 26, 2012 3:27 pm

After months of anticipation, and just a few weeks before the voting, Egypt now has a list of 13 officially approved presidential candidates.

Amr Moussa, the former secretary-general of the Arab League, is one of the 13, and he is ahead in most opinion surveys in advance of the May 23-24 election.

And in a reversal, Egyptian election officials agreed Thursday to let one of Hosni Mubarak's former prime ministers run for president.

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Middle East
2:38 pm
Mon April 23, 2012

Egyptians Warily Await Final Slate Of Candidates

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Credit Amr Nabil / AP
During a demonstration at Cairo's Tahrir Square last week, veiled Egyptian women hold posters supporting Muslim cleric Hazem Abu Ismail, an ultra-conservative preacher who was disqualified from running for the presidential elections on technical grounds.
Credit Khaled Desouki / AFP/Getty Images
Amr Moussa, the former Arab League secretary-general and Egyptian foreign minister, is currently considered the front-runner in Egypt's presidential election. Here, he speaks during a press conference in Cairo on Sunday.
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Originally published on Mon April 23, 2012 4:39 pm

Egypt's election commission is expected to announce the final list of candidates this week for next month's presidential elections. But which candidate will win is far from clear.

A recent Egyptian poll shows nearly 40 percent of voters have no idea who to support. Another 30 percent who had decided will be forced to select someone else because their preferred candidates were among the 10 barred by election officials recently.

As a result, Egyptian voters who were once excited about the prospect of their first free presidential election are growing frustrated.

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Africa
12:12 pm
Mon April 2, 2012

Once-Thriving Egyptian Port Suffers After Soccer Riot

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Credit AP
Egyptian soccer fans clash with riot police following a match between the hometown Al-Masry team and Cairo's Al-Ahly at the soccer stadium in Port Said, Egypt, on Feb. 1.
Credit AP
On March 24, Egyptians hold a poster with a photo of Belal Mamdouh, a teenager who was killed during clashes between soccer fans and Egyptian soldiers following the ban of the Port Said soccer team.
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Originally published on Mon April 2, 2012 2:12 pm

The Egyptian city of Port Said is the northern gateway to one of the world's key shipping lanes, the Suez Canal connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. With its ornate buildings and clean streets, the sprawling city has one of the highest standards of living in Egypt.

But this year, Port Said has become known for something more sinister: It was the site of Egypt's deadliest soccer riot.

Many of the city's officials and residents say the tragedy has destroyed Port Said's reputation and left them in financial trouble.

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Africa
12:27 am
Mon April 2, 2012

Unease Grows Over Islamist Political Agenda In Egypt

Credit Gianluigi Guercia / AFP/Getty Images
Egyptians protest outside the administrative court in the capital, Cairo, on Tuesday. The protesters are calling for the panel drafting the constitution to be made up entirely of non-parliamentarians. Controversy swirls around the 100-member panel — handpicked by Islamist lawmakers — which includes only a handful of women and Christians.
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The Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups in Egypt are flexing their growing political muscle. They control the legislative agenda in parliament, and in recent weeks introduced controversial proposals to curb social freedoms and legal rights.

Islamist lawmakers also handpicked a 100-member panel that began meeting this week to write a new constitution, which is widely expected to enshrine Islamic law.

Even so, Islamist leaders say they want Egypt to remain a secular state. But many secular Egyptians are not convinced.

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Africa
8:05 am
Thu March 22, 2012

To Be Heard, Egypt's Bedouin Take Tourists Hostage

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Credit Mike Nelson / EPA/Landov
A Bedouin guide makes his way down from Mount Sinai to the Greek Orthodox monastery of St. Catherine in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. The Bedouins depend on tourism, but have been kidnapping visitors in recent months in an attempt to pressure Egypt's government.
Credit Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson / NPR
Sheik Ahmed Hashem, 37, who heads the Revolutionary Movement of Sinai, led a group of some 150 protesters that detained two busloads of Western tourists earlier this year for five hours at a monastery in Wadi Feiran in South Sinai.
Credit Asmaa Waguuih / Reuters/Landov
A Bedouin man takes a visitor on a tour of Mount Catherine in South Sinai. Bedouin tribesmen in the region say they have been kidnapping Western tourists to pressure the Egyptian government to meet their basic needs and release jailed Bedouins.
Credit Khaled Elfiqi / EPA/Landov
Tourists visit the desert near the Red Sea resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh, in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, in February.
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Originally published on Wed March 28, 2012 1:05 pm

Bedouin tribesmen on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula rely on tourists for their livelihood — taking them on safaris, selling them trinkets, renting them huts at no-frills resorts on the Red Sea.

But these days, some Bedouins are using tourists for something completely different: as hostages in their political battle with the Egyptian government. In one recent incident, the tribesmen kidnapped two Brazilian tourists to secure the release of imprisoned relatives. The kidnappers released the women unharmed a few hours later.

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