Rawya Rageh

Rawya Rageh is an Egyptian journalist and Senior Crisis Adviser for Amnesty International based in New York City. She was previously a broadcast journalist known for her in-depth coverage of notable stories across the Middle East and Africa, including the Iraq War, the Darfur crisis in Sudan, the Saddam Hussein trial, the Arab Spring, and the Boko Haram conflict in Northern Nigeria. Working as a correspondent for the Al Jazeera English network her contribution to the Peabody Award-winning coverage the network provided of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and the Arab Spring was documented in the books 18 Days: Al Jazeera English and the Egyptian Revolution In addition to her broadcast reporting, Rageh is an active social media journalist, recognized by the Washington Post as one of "The 23 Accounts You Must Follow to Understand Egypt" and by Forbes Middle East Magazine as one of the "100 Arab personalities with the most presence on Twitter."

Early career

2001–2006 Rageh began her journalism career as an intern for the Associated Press News Agency while still a student at the American University in Cairo. In January 2004 she became the first AP newswoman to cover the annual Hajj Pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia

Rageh completed her Masters of Journalism in 2006 Her complete reporting experiences including her escape from an angry machete wielding pro-Mubarak mob in the port city of Alexandria has been documented in the book 18 Days: Al Jazeera English and the Egyptian Revolution, by Scott Bridges and Liberation Square: Inside the Egyptian Revolution and the Rebirth of a Nation, by Ashraf Khalil and her live tweets, often utilized by other news outlets in order to reflect the social media of that day, have been preserved in an archived collection maintained by the American University in Cairo Rare Books and Special Collections Library along with other recommended tweets, blogs, and local/regional media reports covering the Egyptian revolution.

She was live on air to report the 11 February resignation of former president Hosni Mubarak, reporting from outside the Al Ittihadia Presidential palace, and later that night from above a jubilant Tahrir Square. Minutes after Mubarak's resignation was announced, she said:

I am trying to gather the words, the sentences to describe to you the sentiment here, but it is simply indescribable. The moment the announcement [of Mubarak's resignation] was made, people were crying, they fell to their knees, praying immediately on the floor. The tears are everywhere, the smiles, the dancing. ... I'm 30 years old. ... All my years of life I have known one president and I can tell you I've never seen this sentiment on the streets of Egypt.

Reporting in Africa Beginning in 2013 Rageh began reporting as a roving correspondent for Al Jazeera English in Nigeria and Kenya. Her reports from that time include such stories as the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria's north, attacks along the Kenyan-Somali border by the armed group Al Shabab, and the attempted coup in South Sudan.

Amnesty International On 17 October 2016 Rageh announced via Twitter she had joined Amnesty International as a Senior Crisis Adviser investigating human rights abuses in emergencies.

Honors and awards 2006 – Dan Eldon Scholarship Award – Overseas Press Club Foundation 2006 – Foreign Press Association Scholarship 2012 – Peabody Award for Al Jazeera English team coverage of Arab Awakening – Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia 2014 – Columbia Graduate Journalism School's 100 Great Stories reported by Alum 2014 – Panelist Berlin Documentary Forum 3 2014 – Dart Center Ochberg Fellowship