Aida Alami
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aidaalami.bsky.social
Aida Alami
@aidaalami.bsky.social
540 followers 87 following 5 posts
Reporter at large. Mostly migration/human rights. Words in @CJR, @nytimes, @nybooks and other places. @ColumbiaJourn visiting prof/alum. Board member @AMEJA. Contributor @OurWomenOTG. Travel addict.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Aida Alami
columbiajournalism.bsky.social
In her latest piece for The @newyorker.com, @aidaalami.bsky.social, James Madison Visiting Professor on First Amendment Issues, tells the story of Leqaa Kordia, who demonstrated outside Columbia’s campus gates and remains the last participant still detained by ICE: www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
The Last Columbia Protester in ICE Detention
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2016, has been detained in Texas for the past eight months.
www.newyorker.com
October 25, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
freedom.press
Had Hamdi’s arrest happened anywhere else in the world, it'd "spark a collective outcry," @aidaalami.bsky.social writes in @columjournreview.bsky.social.

“But in this case, the person targeted is pro-Palestine. The muted reaction is a troubling public response to a troubling act of state power.”
Twin assaults on press freedom.
The ICE detention of Sami Hamdi closely follows the deportation of Mario Guevara.
www.cjr.org
November 3, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
columjournreview.bsky.social
The ICE detention of Sami Hamdi closely follows the deportation of Mario Guevara. Read @aidaalami.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/the_media_to...
Twin assaults on press freedom.
The ICE detention of Sami Hamdi closely follows the deportation of Mario Guevara.
www.cjr.org
November 3, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
columjournreview.bsky.social
Proximity to power is not the only way—or even the best way—to report on government, by @aidaalami.bsky.social.
www.cjr.org/the_media_to...
The press leaves the Pentagon.
Proximity to power is not the only way—or even the best way—to report on government.
www.cjr.org
October 20, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
washingtonpost.com
Column: Detainees at ICE facilities may be more vulnerable to extreme heat exposure than people housed in federal, state and county prisons, according to a Washington Post analysis.
Column | ICE detainees face greater risk from extreme heat than most prisoners
A Washington Post analysis found that ICE detention centers experience an average of 29 days of dangerous heat per year.
wapo.st
October 19, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
michaelluo.bsky.social
Do you know the name, Leqaa Kordia? She’s the last Columbia protester in ICE detention. Read her story. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
The Last Columbia Protester in ICE Detention
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2016, has been detained in Texas for the past eight months.
www.newyorker.com
October 17, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
rozinaali.bsky.social
Leqaa Kordia faces deportation for protesting the war in Gaza, in which she lost more than 175 of her relatives. She is the last Columbia protestor still in ICE detention.

www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
The Last Columbia Protester in ICE Detention
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2016, has been detained in Texas for the past eight months.
www.newyorker.com
October 17, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
rimaanabtawi.bsky.social
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2016, has been detained in Texas for the past eight months.

www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
The Last Columbia Protester in ICE Detention
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2016, has been detained in Texas for the past eight months.
www.newyorker.com
October 17, 2025 at 11:52 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
newyorker.com
Leqaa Kordia—not a Columbia student but “a simple Palestinian girl,” as she describes herself—is the last remaining campus protester still in detention from the Trump Administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the U.S. Read her story: https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/mGwzBs
October 18, 2025 at 3:00 AM
Reposted by Aida Alami
newyorker.com
Leqaa Kordia—not a Columbia student but “a simple Palestinian girl,” as she describes herself—is the last remaining campus protester still in detention from the Trump Administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the U.S.
The Last Columbia Protester in ICE Detention
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has lived in the U.S. since 2016, has been detained in Texas for the past eight months.
www.newyorker.com
October 17, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
keefemurren.bsky.social
journalist @aidaalami.bsky.social interviewed on the GenZ protests in Morocco and their "very basic and reasonable demands" and regime efforts to "co-opt the movement."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx3A...
Morocco public figures urge king to act after youth protests • FRANCE 24 English
YouTube video by FRANCE 24 English
www.youtube.com
October 8, 2025 at 11:02 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
mirakamdar.bsky.social
What Could We Be Doing in Gaza? Urgent ideas to defend press freedom in the world's deadliest place for journalists.! 🦋
www.cjr.org/feature/urge...
Urgent Ideas for Defending Press Freedom in Gaza
Letters, condemnations, and Israeli court cases have failed to change the world’s deadliest place for journalists. We’ve cast out for a new approach.
www.cjr.org
August 18, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
lattif.bsky.social
Fascinating and deeply reported piece from Aida Alami in @nybooks.com on what makes a uniquely Muslim American imam, and how they are helping themselves and their community navigate the demands of a secularizing, pluralistic, and Islamophobic country.
The New Imams | Aida Alami
For years I have been working on a documentary film about young Muslims in France, centered on the 2017 trial that convicted a police officer of killing a
www.nybooks.com
July 25, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
nybooks.com
“Imams in the US,” writes @aidaalami.bsky.social, “[need] to guide their congregants through civic life in a country whose dominant culture is secularizing, pluralistic, and systematically Islamophobic.”
The New Imams | Aida Alami
For years I have been working on a documentary film about young Muslims in France, centered on the 2017 trial that convicted a police officer of killing a
buff.ly
July 22, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Reposted by Aida Alami
mirakamdar.bsky.social
"The task of imams in the US is markedly different: to guide their congregants through civic life in a country whose dominant culture is secularizing, pluralistic, and systematically Islamophobic." Excellent piece by @aidaalami.bsky.social @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...
The New Imams | Aida Alami
For years I have been working on a documentary film about young Muslims in France, centered on the 2017 trial that convicted a police officer of killing a
www.nybooks.com
July 17, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
jennyhauf.bsky.social
From "The Radical Courage of Noor Abdalla" by @aidaalami.bsky.social for the @newyorker.com.
www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
An excerpt from the linked article. It reads as follows: As Abdalla readied Deen for the ceremony, cheers could be heard in the main hall. The event’s featured speakers, including the Palestinian writer Mohammed el-Kurd, the Tunisian singer Emel Mathlouthi, and the actor Susan Sarandon, were arriving. A box in the room where Abdalla was getting ready contained dozens of pieces of fabric with the names of Palestinians killed in Gaza written on them in both English and Arabic. Abdalla pinned one on herself: “Azhar Ibrahim Ayesh Shaheen age: 22.” Deen was wearing a miniature cap and gown with text printed on the back that read “They tried to bury us but they did not know we are seeds.”
May 31, 2025 at 11:04 AM
Reposted by Aida Alami
hofrench.bsky.social
An enormous tree has fallen and I'm hoping to see a definitive appreciation. I was privileged to know Ngugi late in his career. He and I did a book discussion together at UC Irvine in 2011, we've shared an agent, and stayed in touch. A big loss. lithub.com/ngugi-wa-thi...
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Giant of Kenyan Letters
Just thirty kilometres outside of Nairobi, off the Nakuru highway, the land becomes flatter and less populated. An unassuming field beyond Limuru gives way to several isolated buildings behind a ru…
lithub.com
May 28, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
mmolarsky.bsky.social
“To the students here today, you spoke when silence was the easier choice,” Noor Abdalla said. “You stood firmer when these institutions failed you. True justice and education must include the freedom to dissent, the right to speak out for human rights, and the courage ...”
The Radical Courage of Noor Abdalla
How the wife of Mahmoud Khalil has navigated becoming a new mother while fighting for her husband’s freedom.
www.newyorker.com
May 22, 2025 at 12:27 AM
aidaalami.bsky.social
My latest:
newyorker.com The New Yorker @newyorker.com · May 21
Noor Abdalla was eight months pregnant when her husband, Mahmoud Khalil, was arrested, in March. She hasn’t seen him since, and now has a one-month-old son.
nyer.cm/b7u1tIk
May 22, 2025 at 10:41 AM
Reposted by Aida Alami
newyorker.com
Noor Abdalla was eight months pregnant when her husband, Mahmoud Khalil, was arrested, in March. She hasn’t seen him since, and now has a one-month-old son.
nyer.cm/b7u1tIk
May 21, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
emilybell.bsky.social
Wonderfully written by @aidaalami.bsky.social , an empathetic piece on an enraging situation
newyorker.com The New Yorker @newyorker.com · May 21
Noor Abdalla was eight months pregnant when her husband, Mahmoud Khalil, was arrested, in March. She hasn’t seen him since, and now has a one-month-old son.
nyer.cm/b7u1tIk
May 21, 2025 at 11:01 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
bermudezlievano.bsky.social
"In terms of journalism, I am equally as horrified institutionally as I am inspired individually"

Very poignant interview by @aidaalami.bsky.social with Omar El Akkad
www.cjr.org/the_media_to...
Q&A: Omar El Akkad on the War in Gaza and the Failure of Journalistic Institutions
A conversation with the author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.
www.cjr.org
March 27, 2025 at 12:20 AM
Reposted by Aida Alami
columbiajournalism.bsky.social
📝 The stories are in! M.S. theses are officially submitted today.

From idea to investigation, fearless research to final drafts — CJS students have poured everything into their master’s project. Congrats to the 2025 M.S. cohort on this major milestone! #ReportingBeginsHere
March 14, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
columbiajournalism.bsky.social
A statement from Columbia Journalism School faculty defending press freedom: journalism.columbia.edu/news/cjs-fac...
Pulitzer Hall
March 14, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Reposted by Aida Alami
mirakamdar.bsky.social
“One does not have to agree with the political opinions of any particular individual to understand that these threats cut to the core of what it means to live in a pluralistic democracy.” Statement by @columbiajournalism.bsky.social
journalism.columbia.edu/news/cjs-fac...
A Statement from Columbia Journalism School Faculty Defending Press Freedom | Columbia Journalism School
journalism.columbia.edu
March 15, 2025 at 12:42 PM