Stories written by Mel Frykberg
Mel Frykberg began her journalism career reporting on unrest in black townships, including Soweto, in South Africa during the apartheid era. She later worked as a journalist in Sydney, Australia. Mel has worked as a journalist in the Middle East for over a decade. She has reported for a number of major international publications from Gaza, Jerusalem, Beirut, Cairo, and Amman where she has lived. Mel also edited local magazines and newspapers in the region and is a frequent commentator on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict on National Public Radio in the United States. Frykberg studied journalism in the U.K.

Gaddafi Loyalists Up In Arms

By Mel Frykberg
The security situation in Libya remains tense as violence by way of car bombings, political assassinations of high-ranking government and military officials, attacks on foreign diplomatic staff and NGOs, and young men sorting out minor disputes with AK-47s continues unabated.

Persecuted Libyans Struggle to Be Heard

By Mel Frykberg
Pregnant women miscarrying due to mistreatment, detainees mainly from sub-Saharan Africa denied adequate food and water. Small cells crammed with 80-100 detainees subjected to arbitrary justice by Libya’s volatile militias, politically persecuted Somalis forcibly repatriated to Mogadishu, and hundreds of boat people dying trying to flee Libya for a better life in Europe.

Human Rights Worse After Gaddafi

By Mel Frykberg
“The human rights situation in Libya now is far worse than under the late dictator Muammar Gaddafi,” Nasser al-Hawary, researcher with the Libyan Observatory for Human Rights tells IPS.

Libya May Steer Clear of the Islamist Way

By Mel Frykberg
Libyans appear to be putting their hopes in Mahmoud Jibril’s liberal National Forces Alliance (NFA) to cement a coalition and build bridges between Libya’s fractious militias. Many believe the party can also unite other ideologically opposed political parties, and both opponents and supporters of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Women Targeted in Tahrir Square

By Mel Frykberg
It is becoming increasingly uncomfortable to be female or foreign in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, birthplace of the January 2011 Egyptian revolution.

Verdict Revives Egyptian Anger

By Mel Frykberg
If the life sentences for former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and one of his key allies were meant to placate Egyptians, they have had the opposite effect.

Verdict Revives Egyptian Anger

By Mel Frykberg
If the life sentences for former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and one of his key allies were meant to placate Egyptians, they have had the opposite effect.

Women Look for a Place in New Egypt

By Mel Frykberg
"It was so frustrating but so exciting at the same time," recalls 15-year-old Mariam Assam, a year-10 student in Cairo. Assam was recalling the days she tried to join protestors during the Egyptian revolution in January 2011 but was intially prevented by her parents who said street protests were no place for a girl to be.

Women Look for a Place in New Egypt

By Mel Frykberg
"It was so frustrating but so exciting at the same time," recalls 15-year-old Mariam Assam, a year-10 student in Cairo. Assam was recalling the days she tried to join protestors during the Egyptian revolution in January 2011 but was intially prevented by her parents who said street protests were no place for a girl to be.

Egyptians Protest Choice Between Right and Right

By Mel Frykberg
Like the delayed after-effects of an earthquake below the ocean before the subsequent tsunami hits adjacent coastlines, Egyptian anger finally exploded this week after several days of stunned silence following the controversial results of Egypt’s first-round of presidential elections.

Egyptians Protest Choice Between Right and Right

By Mel Frykberg
Like the delayed after-effects of an earthquake below the ocean before the subsequent tsunami hits adjacent coastlines, Egyptian anger finally exploded this week after several days of stunned silence following the controversial results of Egypt’s first-round of presidential elections.

MIDEAST: Divided We Execute

By Mel Frykberg
The execution of a Palestinian father and son by Hamas security forces in Gaza throws up a sharp difference over the death penalty between Gaza and the West Bank. In the West Bank a temporary moratorium is in place.

Palestinians Prisoners Languish in Administrative Detention

By Mel Frykberg
"I’m sick with worry about my daughter. I’m afraid of what they are doing to her. She has done nothing to deserve this. If they have anything against her why don’t they bring her to trial?" Yehiya Al Shalabi asked IPS rhetorically.

MIDEAST: Palestinians Prepare for Massive Uprising

By Mel Frykberg
Leading members of the Palestinian Popular Committees in the West Bank plan massive civil unrest and disobedience against the Israeli occupation authorities come September when the Palestinians take their case for statehood to the UN.

MIDEAST: ‘Flytilla’ Debacle Another PR Nightmare For Israel

By Mel Frykberg
Confused foreign tourists arriving at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport on Friday would be forgiven for thinking that a terrorist attack was about to take place.

MIDEAST: Children Find an Island of Near Normalcy

By Mel Frykberg
It is a warm spring day as citizens go about their business. Colourful bougainvilleas climb the building housing the Yaffa Community Centre (YCC). Inside the centre’s kindergarten children play while older students attend a class at the media centre. A group of foreigners is touring the attractively decorated building and getting a brief introduction to its history.

MIDEAST: Dancing in a Palestinian Bubble

By Mel Frykberg
It’s Thursday night, the beginning of the weekend in the Muslim world, and time to party and let one’s hair down in Ramallah, the occupied West Bank’s isolated bubble and de facto capital.
Rabbi Arik. Credit: Rabbis for Human Rights

MIDEAST: A Zionist Way to Back Palestinians

By Mel Frykberg
To many people Rabbi Arik Ascherman would appear to be a contradiction in terms. He is an ardent Zionist and religious Jew who believes that God made a covenant with the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. But the core of Ascherman’s Zionist ideology revolves around fighting for human rights, especially those of the Palestinians.
Children from the village of Nabi Saleh who were injured by teargas canisters used by Israeli security forces to disperse a non-violent protest. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

Palestinian Children Targeted as Israel Crushes Unrest

By Mel Frykberg
"Father please help me! Don’t let them take me away," screamed 12-year-old Ahmed Siyam as approximately 50 heavily armed Israeli soldiers and police dragged the handcuffed and blindfolded boy away.

MIDEAST: A Price to Pay for Israeli Aid Restrictions

By Mel Frykberg
Israeli restrictions on the delivery of international aid to impoverished Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories are costing aid organisations nearly five million dollars annually, and European and U.S. tax payers are footing the bill.

MIDEAST: Time Running Out for Two-State Solution

By Mel Frykberg
Time is of the essence if the implementation of a two-state solution to end the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to succeed. Changing demographics both within Israeli and Palestinian society could render this impossible, with a one-state solution the only feasible outcome.
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