Ahmad Matar has been doing parkour in the Gaza Strip since he was 10 years old. Now 20, he was inspired to try the extreme sport – which sees participants acrobatically traverse physical obstacles using no additional aids or equipment – by his friends Abdullah Anshasi and Muhammed Aljkhbeir, who introduced parkour to the Palestinian territory after watching the documentary Jump London online. Enamoured by their early attempts and videos, Ahmad joined them as one of 12 founding members of Gaza Parkour in 2005. Despite the difficulties presented by living in a place* other people’s conflicts have reduced largely to rubble, the collective hold tight to their dream of bringing hope to Gaza through a sport that, as Ahmad explains here to Sarah, makes them feel truly free.
Iakwe Brock Turner: Because of you I am no longer afraid
On September 2, Brock Turner, the Stanford University student sentenced to six short months in a county jail for sexually assaulting another student with intent to rape, was released after serving half his sentence – already felt by many to be incredibly lenient given the seriousness of his crime. One of our writers, Selina Leem, was brokenhearted on behalf of Turner’s victim, and has asked us to publish this open letter to him outlining her own experience of sexual abuse, and the impact it has had on her growing up. Thank you Selina.
Iakwe Brock Turner.
My name is Selina Neirok Leem and I am from the Republic of the Marshall Islands. You probably don’t even know where the Marshall Islands is, right? We are a very small nation, one of the most vulnerable to climate change, in the Pacific, halfway between Hawai’i and Australia. We do not own a lot of land but we do own a big area in the ocean. As coined by our Ambassador for Climate, Tony de Brum, we are a large ocean country. Turner, you must be wondering why I am writing to you. Continue →
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