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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
2:27 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
10:05 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 3:05 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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Sports
11:01 pm
Tue March 13, 2012

An American Soccer Coach In Egypt's National Court

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Credit Karim Jaafar / AFP/Getty Images
The Egyptian national soccer team's American coach, Bob Bradley, attends his team's friendly match against Kenya in the Qatari capital, Doha, in February. The Egyptian team won 5-0.
Credit Karim Jaafar / AFP/Getty Images
As an American coaching a foreign team, the language barrier is one of the challenges Bob Bradley faces. He relies on Arabic-speaking assistants to translate for his players, most of whom don't speak English.
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Originally published on Wed March 14, 2012 11:24 am

Anti-Americanism is on the rise in Egypt these days. A highly publicized trial is under way in Cairo against U.S.-funded pro-democracy groups, and Egyptians are making it clear they reject any American involvement in their country's affairs.

There's one exception, however: an American living in Cairo whom Egyptians are counting on to shake things up. His name is Bob Bradley, and he's the New Jersey-born coach of Egypt's struggling national soccer team.

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Middle East
2:25 pm
Tue February 28, 2012

Egyptians Prepare For Wide-Open Presidential Poll

Credit Asmaa Waguih / Reuters/Landov
Egyptian presidential candidate and former Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa delivers a speech to Bedouins in Ras Sidr during a campaign trip to the South Sinai last week. Egyptians are anticipating the first presidential elections after last year's ouster of Hosni Mubarak.
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Egypt's presidential race officially kicks off Saturday, and there are already more than a dozen contenders for what is expected to be the most competitive presidential election ever.

Nevertheless, many Egyptians fear those currently in power will try to manipulate the process to make sure that a candidate of their choosing wins.

At 41, Khaled Ali is the youngest Egyptian vying to be his country's next president.

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Middle East
5:11 am
Sat February 25, 2012

In Egypt, Christian-Muslim Tension Is On The Rise

Credit Khalil Hamra / AP
A Coptic Christian man holds a cross made of flowers during a clash between Christians and Muslims in Cairo in November. Relations are becoming more strained between the two communities, and there has been periodic violence.
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Originally published on Thu March 29, 2012 4:18 pm

Blackened rubble is all that is left of Abskharon Suleiman's appliance store in the northern Egyptian village of Sharbat.

Suleiman is a Coptic Christian, and his upstairs apartment, as well as his children's homes and shops, were gutted and looted in an attack last month by young Muslim men.

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Middle East
3:59 pm
Thu February 16, 2012

The Woman Behind Egypt's Crackdown On Aid Groups

Credit Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images
Egyptian Planning and International Cooperation Minister Faiza Aboul Naga (shown here in April 2011 in Washington, D.C.) has repeatedly warned Egyptians about the alleged danger foreigners pose to their country. She is the driving force behind recent efforts to prosecute 43 people, including American and other foreign democracy activists, for operating illegally in Egypt.
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In Egypt, a female Cabinet minister has emerged as the driving force behind a crackdown on U.S.-funded pro-democracy groups.

The attacks of Faiza Aboul Naga — a holdover from the regime of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak — have made her a hero to many Egyptians who believe she is defending their country's honor. But the threat she poses to billions of dollars in U.S. aid and international loans could make her power short-lived.

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Middle East
3:56 pm
Tue February 14, 2012

Egyptians Harbor Suspicions About U.S. Aid Groups

Credit Amr Nabil / AP
An Egyptian soldier on an armored vehicle guards an exchange office in Cairo on Monday. Tensions between the U.S. and Egypt are rising over Cairo's investigation of aid workers, many of them American. An Egyptian Cabinet minister, Faiza Aboul Naga, recently accused the U.S. of directly funding pro-democracy groups in order to create chaos in Egypt.
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The Egyptian government has further escalated tensions with Washington by accusing U.S. officials of directly funding nonprofit groups to create chaos in the Arab country.

The latest comments were made by an Egyptian Cabinet member to prosecutors conducting a criminal probe into the activities of 43 aid workers, many of them American.

Such claims anger U.S. officials, who have threatened to hold back more than $1 billion in military aid if the crackdown on private, pro-democracy organizations doesn't end.

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NPR Story
7:00 am
Sat January 28, 2012

Egyptians Divide As They Celebrate Together

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This week, Egyptians marked the first anniversary of the uprising that led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Deepening political divisions between pro-Islamist and secular protesters marred the event, erupting into violent scuffles. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports.

Middle East
3:23 am
Fri January 27, 2012

Authorities Bar 6 Americans From Leaving Egypt

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Egyptian authorities are preventing six Americans, including the son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, from leaving the country. They work for non-governmental agencies that were raided by Egyptian security forces last month.

World
2:00 pm
Wed January 25, 2012

Egypt Marks Anniversary Of Revolution

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Originally published on Wed January 25, 2012 6:03 pm

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block.

Cairo's Tahrir Square overflowed with Egyptians today. Traffic was snarled for miles as people jammed bridges and streets. The crowd marked the first anniversary of the popular uprising that drove Hosni Mubarak from power.

And as NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports from Cairo, many people did not come to celebrate.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)

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