Leila Fadel
Leila Fadel is a national correspondent for NPR based in Los Angeles, covering issues of culture, diversity, and race.
Most recently, she was NPR's international correspondent based in Cairo and covered the wave of revolts in the Middle East and their aftermaths in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and beyond. Her stories brought us to the heart of a state-ordered massacre of pro-Muslim Brotherhood protesters in Cairo in 2013 when police shot into crowds of people to clear them and killed between 1,000 and 2,000 people. She told us the tales of a coup in Egypt and what it is like for a country to go through a military overthrow of an elected government. She covered the fall of Mosul to ISIS in 2014 and documented the harrowing tales of the Yazidi women who were kidnapped and enslaved by the group. Her coverage also included stories of human smugglers in Egypt and the Syrian families desperate and willing to pay to risk their lives and cross a turbulent ocean for Europe.
She was awarded the Lowell Thomas Award from the Overseas Press Club for her coverage of the 2013 coup in Egypt and the toll it took on the country and Egyptian families. In 2017 she earned a Gracie award for the story of a single mother in Tunisia whose two eldest daughters were brainwashed and joined ISIS. The mother was fighting to make sure it didn't happen to her younger girls.
Before joining NPR, she covered the Middle East for The Washington Post as the Cairo Bureau Chief. Prior to her position as Cairo Bureau Chief for the Post, she covered the Iraq war for nearly five years with Knight Ridder, McClatchy Newspapers, and later the Washington Post. Her foreign coverage of the devastating human toll of the Iraq war earned her the George. R. Polk award in 2007. In 2016 she was the Council on Foreign Relations Edward R. Murrow fellow.
Leila Fadel is a Lebanese-American journalist who speaks conversational Arabic and was raised in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
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Some Arab American, Muslim and young voters in the Detroit area plan to vote "uncommitted" in Tuesday's primary. They want to send a message to Biden: Call for a cease-fire or lose us in November. -
Senators will vote Thursday on whether to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the high court. Her fate was never in doubt, but was cemented when three GOP senators said they would vote for her. -
Scores of mothers competing in the Olympics and Paralympics are speaking out about the challenges they face as working mothers in sports. Some are using their platform to make a change. -
Voters of color should not be treated as "get-out-the-vote targets," says the head of one of the groups that issued the report. Instead, outreach needs to start one to two years before an election.
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Protesters for Black lives say when they protest for social justice, they're met with rubber bullets and tear gas. Meanwhile, a mob of white extremists storms the Capitol with little resistance. -
By Monday, at least 31 states will be open or partially open, often in opposition to guidelines from scientists. President Trump has been pushing for the country to get back to work. -
More and more places in the United States are dropping Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples' Day, but the shift isn't happening without some pushback. -
Up to 20 percent of LGBT Americans live in rural parts of the country. A new study says they shouldn't have to choose between being protected from discrimination and choosing where they call home. -
A prominent Libyan human rights worker was assassinated Wednesday. NPR's Leila Fadel interviewed Salwa Bugaighis earlier this month and remembers the lawyer's efforts against former dictator Moammar Gadhi's regime.
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An Egyptian court issued its verdict in the trial of three journalists from the Al Jazeera English network. Though evidence of their alleged crimes was never presented in court, two of the journalists were slapped with seven-year sentences and one with a ten-year sentence. The decision has been met with international condemnation.
