Bahrain
From 2011 to 2014 I was working for the Bahrain Center for Human Rights as a researcher. UK media were quite interested in the Arab Spring and its effects across the Middle East and North Africa, so I began pitching articles on the situation in Bahrain.
- The Guardian: ‘Bahrain has failed to grasp reform – so why is the grand prix going ahead?’ (30 Jan, 2012)
- OpenDemocracy: ‘Policing Bahrain: the long arm of the British’ (8 August 2013)
- Vice: ‘Britain Might Deport a Bahraini Dissident to a Country that Hates Him’ (23 May, 2014)
- Vice: ‘Bahrain’s PR Campaign is Doomed to Fail’ (25 Feb, 2013)
- Vice: ‘Explaining Human Rights to Bernie Ecclestone’ (22 April, 2013)
- Vice: ‘Bahrain Just Bought More Tear Gas Canisters Than It Has Citizens’ (22 Oct, 2013)
- Vice: ‘Hanging Out with Western Sycophants at the ‘This Is Bahrain’ Conference’ (20 May, 2014)
- HuffPost: ‘The Crimes of Our Fathers – From Kenya to Bahrain’ (12 June, 2013)
- HuffPost: ‘How Bahrain lost the Propaganda War’ (4 Dec, 2012)
- GlobalVoices: ‘Mutual Self-Interest: Bahrain Celebrates 200 Years of ‘Friendship’ with Britain‘ (22 March, 2016)
Human Rights and Turkey
In 2012 I first visited Turkey on holiday, and returned for a work conference on Bahrain to Istanbul where I saw the end of the 2013 Gezi Park protests and made the first piece of film work I had attempted.
Doing video journalism was something I found I enjoyed a lot, so I started doing more of it, sometimes for Vice. I also started to write about human rights topics more generally. At the end of 2014 I went to live in Turkey for about 6 months until April 2015. I started learning Turkish and writing about Turkish politics:
- OpenDemocracy: ‘Turkey’s new Caliph: understanding Erdoğan’s hegemony’ (13 August, 2014)
- OpenDemocracy: ‘New security laws could make Turkey into a police state’ (16 December, 2014)
- GlobalVoices: ‘The Original Santa Claus is Under Threat from the Turkish Construction Industry‘ (13 Jan, 2015)
- OpenDemocracy: ‘Turkey and Armenia: genocide? what genocide?’ (28 Feb, 2015)
- OpenDemocracy: ‘Freedom or dignity: media censorship in the new Turkey’ (7 April, 2015)
- OpenDemocracy: ‘Turkey and the Armenian genocide: the next century’ (24 April, 2015)
- GlovalVoices: ‘In Eastern Turkey, Walking in the Shadow of Genocide‘ (30 April, 2015)
- GlobalVoices: ‘I’m a Syrian Refugee in Turkey, but I’ve Decided to Return Home‘ (4 Sept, 2015)
- GlobalVoices: ‘At Least 86 Killed in Explosions at Ankara Peace Rally‘ (10 October, 2015)
- GlobalVoices: ‘Two Presidents, an Audacious Kidnap Attempt and Misogyny in Turkish Football‘ (29 Oct, 2015)
- AlAraby: ‘Will Erdogan manage to change the constitution in 2016?’ (7 Jan, 2016)
- GlobalVoices: ‘Outspoken Fashion Designer Arrested By Turkish Authorities‘ (5 January, 2017)
- GlobalVoices: ‘Turkish Opposition Looks to Build Momentum as Their Justice March Reaches Istanbul‘ (8 July, 2017)
- Ahval: ‘Turkey struggles to take moral high ground in face of its own human rights record’ (Oct 13, 2018)
- Ahval: ‘Why can’t the Turkish government produce a national car?’ (April 20, 2019)
- Ahval: ‘Turkish opposition’s İmamoğlu could win more votes in new poll’ (May 7, 2019)
- Ahval: ‘Turkish newspapers rush to hail Boris Johnson despite his cynicism’ (27 July, 2019)
- OpenDemocracy: ‘Turkey’s Mount Ida: who thought this would be a good idea?’ (19 September, 2019)
- Ahval: ‘Britain’s new special adviser for counter-terrorism linked to Turkey lobbyists’ (7 November, 2019)
In Turkey, I also worked on two documentaries, one about the history and politicisation of Istanbul’s architecture, and one about the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. You can see those on the Video page.
Wikipedia
After I started working at Wikimedia UK, I also started writing about Wikipedia and the organisations that support it. You can see a lot of my blogging about Wikimedia UK’s work on their blog.
- London Student: ‘In Defence of Wikipedia’ (30 July, 2016)
- OpenDemocracy: ‘Authoritarian governments hate Wikipedia, which is why you should get involved’ (11 Aug, 2017)
- New Statesman: ‘It’d be a lot harder for foreign governments to hack Wikipedia than you think’ (1 October, 2018)
- TES: ‘How Wikipedia Infiltrated Academia’ (21 Jan, 2019)
- Kurdistan24: ‘Wikipedia needs your help to make Kurdish visible online’ (24 April, 2019)
- Alexandria: Journal of National and International Library & Information Issues: ‘Wikipedia and Libraries’ (2018)
- Wonk Magazine: Why You Should Become a Wikipedia Editor (8 August, 2019)
Culture, Society, History
This is for everything else.
- Dazed: ‘How a Thomas the Tank Engine fandom made me less cynical about the internet‘ (27 Feb, 2019)
- Vice: ‘Jacob Appelbaum Doesn’t Have Much Hope for the Future of Privacy‘ (7 Oct, 2013)
- Vice: ‘A New Copyright Law Could Be the End of the Internet As We Know It (Again)‘ (3 December, 2013)
- Vice: ‘The Saudi Arabian Artist in Jail For Having Long Hair‘ (13 Feb, 2014)
- Middle East Eye: ‘My father, Eric Avebury, the patron saint of unpopular human rights causes‘ (18 Feb, 2016)
- Guardian: ‘This ludicrous election to replace Lord Avebury should be boycotted‘ (18 April, 2016)
- Global Voices: ‘London’s Social Housing is Falling Down‘ (10 August, 2015)
- Global Voices: ‘Reclaiming the Weeping Time‘ (29 May, 2015)
- Vice: ”This Is the Social Cleansing of London’ — Housing Protests as World’s Largest Property Fair Comes to Town‘ (22 Oct, 2014)
- Vice: ‘London’s Arthouse Cinema Workers Are Striking for a Living Wage‘ (24 July, 2014)
- Independent: ‘If you voted to leave, don’t bother wearing a poppy’ (9 November, 2017)
2020-22
After I left my job at Wikimedia UK, I have gone back to freelancing, writing for Byline Times and Left Foot Forward, working for the investigative journalism group All The Citizens, and writing about Turkish politics for Ahval. I also taught a module on Digital Media at Westminster University.
- Byline Times: Defending Wikipedia from Tabloid Hit Jobs and Political Shenanigans (7 January, 2020)
- Byline Times: Online Harms – Ending Anonymity Will Hurt More (26 February, 2020)
- Byline Times: The Year of Living Distantly – The Cost of Love (31 March, 2020)
- Byline Times: Is Russian Propaganda AmplifyingNation of Islam’s Antisemitic ‘True Hebrew’ Trope? (29 July, 2020)
- Byline Times: Babylon Health and the Health Data Goldrush (4 August, 2020)
- Byline Times: Anarchy, Algorithms, Decentralisation – Wikipedia at 20 An Interview with Jimmy Wales (15 January, 2021)
- Byline Times: Football Index’s collapse reveals a deeper rot in the gambling industry (18 March, 2021)
- Ahval: Is a Biden Presidency good for the Kurds – an interview with Hişyar Özsoy, academic and HDP MP (15 November, 2020)
- Ahval: The destruction of an Armenian church in Kütahya revives a history of erasure (5 February, 2021)
- Ahval: Is Turkey a secular country? (23 January, 2021)
- Ahval: The top 10 archaeological finds in Turkey and North Cyprus in 2020 (25 December, 2020)
- Tribune Magazine: Defund the Queen (26 March 2021)
- Byline Times: British History’s Brutish Imperialism has Become a Global Talking Point (7 April, 2021)
- Byline Times: From Cameron to Covid, 10 Years of Broken Transparency Promises (6 May, 2021)
- Byline Times: How much did we pay for PPE? Data the Government doesn’t want to reveal (21 June, 2021)
- Byline Times: ‘I’d become a criminal for living a nomadic way of life’: Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities protest the Policing Bill (9 July, 2021)
- Byline Times: UK’s Outsourcing of Covid Response has Cost More Than The GDP of 140 Countries (12 July, 2021)
- Byline Times: Conservative Links to 30% of Top 20 Covid Contract Firms (15 July, 2021)
- Byline Times: The Brexiteers, the Donor and the Peer: At Least Nine COVID Testing Companies have Political Links (9 August 2021)
- Byline Times: UK Covid Testing Dependent on Imports Despite British Companies Being Available To Do the Same Work (20 August, 2021)
- Byline Times: Genomic Marketing of Covid Testing Company Without People’s Affirmative Consent (14 October, 2021)
- Byline Times: Windfall: Queen Will Be One of the Biggest Beneficiaries of UK’s Green Agenda (4 October, 2021)
- Byline Times: The UK Lags Behind Europe in Installing Low Carbon Heat Pumps (20 October, 2021)
- Byline Times: Coronavirus Border Chaos: Confusion Over Recording and Enforcing of ‘Day 2’ Tests (4 December, 2021)
- Byline Times: ‘A Total Waste of Police Time’: Labour Rows Over Drugs Policy as Cannabis Offences Surge (5 January 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: How Charles Koch funds a roster of young right wingers at Young Voices UK (12 January 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Was Partygate to blame for the scale of the Government’s Police Bill defeat in the Lords? (18 January 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Why you’re not allowed to talk to about the Queen in Parliament (19 January 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: British heritage is under threat from the government, not ‘woke’ activists (21 January 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Teaching Orwell’s 1984 is tyranny, claim right-wing culture warriors (25 January 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Who are the top 10 UK political donors since the 2019 election? (28 January 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Where is the £350 million a week for the NHS the Brexit bus promised? (1 February 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Will Nigel Farage start another referendum campaign – this time on climate change? (2 February 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Toby Young and James Delingpole’s podcast is hilarious (4 February 2022)
- Byline Times: MPs Raise Concerns as Government’s Reliance on Controversial Foreign COVID Testing Firm Continues (4 February 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Tory MP Sir John Hayes accused of spreading “misinformation” in culture war article (8 February 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Why Christopher Chope is the biggest troll in Parliament (10 February 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Newsletter – Levelling Down in The Fens (15 February 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: How US think tank the Heritage Foundation influences the Conservative Party (16 February 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: New government rules on ‘political impartiality’ in schools will chill free speech (18 February 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Newsletter – Levelling Down in The Fens Part 2 (23 February 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: The right is using the crisis in Ukraine to push for more fossil fuel extraction (24 February 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Arms companies look to profit from Ukraine conflict (28 February 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Dangers of government’s Nationality and Borders Bill exposed by Ukraine crisis (2 March 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Denial of rights to Chagos Islanders exposes the cruel reality of UK citizenship policy (4 March 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Nigel Farage’s first anti-Net Zero campaign event cancelled by venue (8 March 2022)
- Byline Times: The absent Lords: 13% of peers rarely or never attend (9 March 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Online Safety Bill returns to Parliament amid chorus of criticism even from Tories (15 March 2022)
- Byline Times: Who owns the fracking giant Cuadrilla? (23 March 2022)
- Byline Times: Solving the House of Lords Problem (28 March 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Who is John Malone, the ‘Cable Cowboy’ and GB News backer who could buy Channel 4? (6 April 2022)
- Byline Times: ‘Another Shocking Example of Waste’, UK spends at least £23.4 million to dispose of unused PPE (8 April 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Tories rally to defend Boris Johnson as calls grow for him to resign over Partygate fines (12 April 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Company co-founded by Trump supporter Peter Thiel in line to run NHS data platform (13 April 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: The Institute of Economic Affairs is promoting NHS privatisation again (15 April 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Murdoch’s new channel TalkTV gears up for launch (22 April 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Why James Delingpole and Maajid Nawaz’s event for vaccine sceptics should worry us (3 May 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Institute of Economic Affairs denies that fossil fuel funding affects its advocacy (5 May 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Newsletter – Localism in the Local Elections (10 May 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Why is Trump-backing billionaire Peter Thiel building a financial and political network in the UK? (11 May 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Who is David Canzini, Boris Johnson’s aide who opposes a windfall tax on energy companies? (24 May 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Private healthcare advertising booms amid record NHS waiting lists (26 May 2022)
- Byline Times: ‘One Big Bag of Lies’, says Reality Show Family Nadine Dorries Accused of Being ‘Paid Actors’ (9 June 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: 57% of asylum seekers due to be deported to Rwanda are Kurdish (14 June 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Why the right wing attacks on the RMT are failing to turn the public against rail strikes (22 June 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: Tories set to appoint more party donors and allies to the House of Lords (29 June 2022)
- Left Foot Forward: NHS outsourcing associated with higher rise in treatable deaths says Lancet study (30 June 2022)
- NovaraMedia: Meet the property tycoon closing down London’s pubs (2 September 2022)