Scenes from the aftermath of Israel's operation Cast Lead. This work was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, Washington D.C. USA (http://www.pulitzercenter.org/) Writer Elliott Woods and Asim Rafiqui have also been writing behind-the-scenes pieces on the Pulitzer Center blog site called Untold Stories which can be read here: http://pulitzercenter.typepad.com/untold_stories/gaza-undone/

Northern Iraq, 2005: The Assyrian Christians find themselves trapped between militant and political Islamists who consider them America’s co-religionists and hence collaborators, and Kurdish nationalists who are increasingly intolerant of difference. Nearly a million Assyrians live in Iraq. Saddam Hussein made them exiles in their own land when he decreed that there were no Assyrians, just Christian Arabs. Thousands of years of history and culture of a people indigenous to the region were simply written off. This was only the most recent of erasures the Assyrians had to face. More may have been known and written about pogroms against the Kurdish and Armenian people, but the Assyrians have suffered massacres and dislocations alongside them. The removal of Saddam Hussein bought hope to the Assyrian community but today they can only watch with dismay as an Islamic insurgency continues unabated, a sectarian political structure is formalized under the label of “democracy” and regional nationalisms harden ethnic divisions. In insurgent dominated cities like Mosul and Baghdad dozens have been killed, churches have been attacked and hundreds have been forced to flee. In the Kurdish autonomous region they face economic and social discrimination as university seats, government jobs, health services, and rural development budgets are withheld. Over 100,000 Assyrians have fled to Syria and Jordan and, despite the pleas of the Assyrian political and religious leadership, many others are preparing to follow. On January 30th 2005 Kurdish authorities prevented nearly 150,000 Assyrians from voting in the elections. Protests were held in a number of cities but the Iraqi administration dismissed their claims. An “election” that was supposed to reflect the will of the people was usurped to meet the needs of those in power. With few allies inside Iraq or in the international community to turn to, the Assyrians must now confront the possibility of yet another erasure.

Story Nominated for Visa d'Or News, Visa Pour L'image 2005 Photographer Nominated for 'Young Photographer of the Year', Visa Pour L'image, 2005. Port Au Prince, Haiti 2005: there is a systematic campaign to intimidate and eliminate pro-aristide and lavalas supporters in haiti prior to the UN sponsored elections in october and november of 2005. it is a campaign that has received little or no media attention, but its impact is real and being felt in the poorest areas of cities llike port au prince. and it is taking place in front of MINUSTAH, the UN stablization force, which finds itself powerless to do anything significant about it. MINUSTAH's mandate has been defined to 'fight gangsters and criminals', a label that is attached to all political opposition who are then being summarily executed. the UN forces themselves, unable to differentiate between real gangs or political acvitists, have resorted to military operations in densly populated areas resulting in possibly hundreds of civilian casualties. as this campaign of extermination continues it is further polarizing the political landscape and possible setting the stage for a bloody and violent elections later in the yea

This project is a part of the NOOR 'Africa Rising' Group project. It documents the stories of the activists, intellectuals, journalists, artists and citizens who formed the powerful Le Balai Citoyen movement, and were at the forefront of removing the dictatorship of Blaise Campaore in 2014. A genuine grassroots resistance movement, Le Balai Citoyen is a youth movement inspired by the words and deeds of the great African revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara. This work explores how Sankara's words, ideas and imaginations remain alive and real in the actions and aspirations of a new generation in Burkina Faso determined to achieve a more just and more equitable political and economic order in the country. Produced by Asim Rafiqui, with the assistance of Olympia de Maismont in Ouagadougo.