Khawla Matar

Khawla Matar is a Bahraini journalist. She is the first Bahraini woman to edit a daily newspaper, Al-Waqt, and has been the director of the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Cairo. Among other outlets, she has worked for the Associated Press, BBC News, and Asharq Al-Awsat.

Education Matar earned her high school diploma at the Khawla Secondary Girls School in 1974. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts in Media and Journalism at the University of Arkansas in 1981. At Durham University in Britain, she earned a Master of Arts in Media Sociology in 1987 and a Ph.D. in the same discipline in 1992.

Career 1981-83: Editor/Correspondent, Al Khaleej, United Arab Emirates 1983-84: Editor/Correspondent, Editorial Page, Akhbar Al Khaleej, Bahrain 1984-87: Correspondent/Director of Photography, Gulf Regional Office, Associated Press 1987-89: Editor-in-Chief, Gulf Today Panorama Magazine, Bahrain 1989-91: Foreign Correspondent, Yemen/Djibouti/Lebanon/Bosnia and Herzegovina etc., LBC News 1991-93: Correspondent/Political Affairs Edictor, MBC 1993-95: Media Officer, Arab Council for Childhood and Development 1996-2005: Media Officer, Arab States Regional Office, International Labour Organization 2005-06: Editor-in-Chief, Al-Waqt 2006-09: Regional Expert on Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, International Labour Organization 2009–Present: Director, UNIC Cairo; in 2011, she helped draft a report on human rights in Tunisia for a high-ranking committee of the United Nations Human Rights Council 2012: Spokesperson, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi