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Amer Matar

Author

Profile

Born: 3.10.1986
Birthplace: Raqqa
Country of birth: Syria
Lives in: Berlin, Friedrichshain


Language: Arabic

Vita

The Syrian journalist and human rights activist Amer Matar was born in 1987 in Raqqa and studied journalism in Damascus. He is co-founder of the organisation Al-Schari (The Street), which campaigns for free media and development. As early as 2010 Al-Schari started documenting the uprise that formed in Syria with TV interviews, reports and documentaries from inside the country. The programmes aired on Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and France24.Since 2002 he has been working for several Syrian and Arabic newspapers. He wrote articles for the feuilleton of the Libanese newspaper Annahar (which is banned in Syria) and was cultural correspondent for Al-Hayat in Damascus. He is interested in the relation between art and the uprising in Syria, which he calles peaceful revolution. The documentary Azadi(2011), which was produced for Al-Schari and covers the daily events of the riot in the Kurdish areas in the North of Syria, was awarded at the Film Festival Rotterdam. Amer Matar worked on the documentary Smuggling 23 Minutes of Revolution as co-director.He also organised a street festival which was celebrated to mark the first anniversary of the uprising in Syria. In 2011 the Syrian secret police arrested, interrogated and tortured him twice for his journalistic work. He was charged with distribution of false news, thus attacking the moral of the nation. With the help of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung he managed to flee Syria in 2012. From October 2012 until Septembre 2015 he was a fellowship holder of the PEN’s Writers-in-Exile programme. In his work he focusses on the most recent events in Syria and emotionally reflects his role as an exile journalist.In Germany his pieces were published in the anthologies Syrien. Der schwierige Weg in die Freiheit (2012) and 2013 in Fremde Heimat. Texte aus dem Exil. For years he has been co-organising the "Syria Mobile Phone Festival". In March 2017 one of his poems was published in the PEN anthology Zuflucht in Deutschland. Texte verfolgter Autoren at the S. Fischer Verlag.