Journalism

So much in life is down to serendipity, not least my career in journalism and my latest book, Genocide: Personal Stories, Big Questions. But part of serendipity is also knowing when to seize the opportunity. I fell into journalism when an editor I had gone to see about something entirely different asked me to write a…
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Abstract: What is genocide? It’s a word bandied about these days, especially in the wake of the Israel-Gaza catastrophe, which has galvanised the world. Genocide has a specific meaning, and only the courts can decide, regardless of the intense passion it evokes. On 3 August 2024, it will be ten years since the Islamic State…
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This year, we should remember Benjamin Berell Ferencz who led the Nuremberg prosecution of two dozen SS commanders, and his legacy: Law, not war. It’s beyond belief that in the present day, genocide — a term coined by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944 — remains such a current topic. This is why anniversaries matter….
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I was on the panel for the first session of this conference held in Amsterdam on 26 January 2024. At the session entitled ‘Understanding the Context of the Last Yazidi Genocide, I was joined by: Nayef Sabri, Executive President of Sunrise NGO Wahhab Hassoo, Co-founder & Director of NL Helpt Yezidis Dr Gregory Stanton, founding…
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When the plane carrying Juvenal Habyarimana, the president of Rwanda, crashed on the evening of 6 April, 1994, all hell was unleashed, a hell that had simmered for decades. This year, on April 6-7th,  the world will remember the 30 years that have passed since the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. On the…
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Over the past ten months, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh have been encircled by Azerbaijan troops and endured a food, fuel and medical blockade. This was already a form of “ethnic cleansing” by attrition. Now, following a full-scale military attack by Azerbaijani troops, we are witnessing the forced mass exodus of the ethnic Armenians from their…
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