Resource person: Dr Dina Al Shafie
email: dina@dinamiles.com
Dr. Al Shafie has been working with asylum seekers, and refugees who suffer from torture, sexual violence and other ill treatments for almost 20 years. Her work was giving therapy and medication to start with and forming group therapies and from 2004 she started training on mental health issues that refugees face due to war and displacement.
Dr. Al Shafie is a fluent Arabic and English speaker and comes from Egypt and the UK. She was the first one to manage a psychosocial centre in a legal international NGO that dealt with legal Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA). This led her to get trained in the Istanbul Protocol for the Documentation of Torture and Sexual Violence. Dr. Al Shafie is an expert in training doctors, lawyers, and judges on the Istanbul Protocol and other related fields. Dr. Al Shafie trained in UNHCR, UNODC, Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA), MSF, Physicians for Human Rights, Synergy for Justice, Amideast, doctors from Egyptian governorates, and other NGOs.
She worked as the staff psychiatrist for Médecins Sans Frontières for seven years. Some of the staff were refugees, they themselves had suffered from psychological issues due to displacement, loss of family members due to war, conflict, and torture. She is also an expert witness in the MENA region where she writes expert witness reports to legal firms all around the world, http://www.refugeelegalaidinformation.org/egypt-coi and is a member of the Justice Rapid Response roster. She has dealt with children who have been subjected to domestic violence, depression, and other psychological issues.
For the past four years, Dr. Al Shafie has trained Iraqi and Syrians doctors, lawyers and judges on victim survivors, how to obtain psychological evidence of torture and sexual violence, mentoring Moot courts, and investigating crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Dr. Al Shafie is the Chairman of the Board of Directors in Maadi British International School in Cairo, Egypt. https://www.mbisegypt.com/about-us/history-governance-of-mbis/our-board . It is recognised amongst the most prestigious British Curriculum international schools in Egypt, North Africa and the Middle East. It received the Penta International Awards 2021.
Dr. Al Shafie has a Master’s in Cultural Heritage studies from University College London.
Dr Walter Armbrust
Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s College, Oxford, OX2 6JF
Email: walter.armbrust@sant.ox.ac.uk
Tel: +44 18 65 28 47 41
Fax: +44 18 65 27 45 29
Dr Walter Armbrust is a Professor in the faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford. He is an anthropologist by discipline, with extensive knowledge of modern Middle Eastern studies. Dr Armbrust’s research focuses on mass media, popular culture, politics, and particularly revolution. He has lived in Egypt on and off since 1981 for periods as long as two years on more than one occasion, he is fluent in Egyptian Arabic.
Judge Bruce J. Einhorn (ret.)
Professor of Law, Pepperdine University. Director, Pepperdine Asylum and Refugee Law Clinic
Email: bjejudge@aol.com
Tel: 310 506 4416
Of Counsel, Wolfsdorf Immigration Law Group
Telephone: 310-570-4088
Judge Einhorn is a member of the ABA National Commission on Immigration and a Lifetime National Commissioner, Anti-Defamation League. He does extensive work on Egypt, Saudi Arabia (e.g., gays and Shiites there), Syria, Yemen, and Jordan.
Dr Rebwar Fatah
Email: rebwar@mideastconsultancy.com or info@mideastconsultancy.com
Dr Rebwar Fatah is the Director of the Middle East Consultancy Services. Dr Fatah has produced thousands of COI reports since he began working as an expert witness in 2000. In the past five years alone, Dr Fatah has produced 1,341 Expert Reports on the Middle East. These include:
- 830 Country Expert Reports
- 416 Document Authentication Reports
- 95 Nationality Reports
Dr Fatah’s reports have been commissioned for and cited in several immigration appeals, as well as family and criminal cases. Moreover, he has assessed many people from the Middle East whose nationality, native language, ethnicity, place of residence has been disputed, and has examined thousands of documents from the MENA region. In addition to a deep knowledge of the region’s administrative and bureaucratic cultures, Dr Fatah’s multilingual proficiencies enable him to understand, interpret and evaluate official documents in the Middle East. As a part of this work, Dr Fatah has produced his own methodology for document authentications and nationality examinations.
Dr Fatah has also provided written and oral evidence in court; among them are five Country Guidance Cases, two Turkish extradition orders and many other cases. Moreover, Dr Fatah has also reviewed and provided guidance on Home Office CPIN reports.
Dr Fatah regularly visits the Middle East, conducting fact-finding missions to ensure that his knowledge is up to date and based on reliable information. Dr Fatah speaks most of the Middle Eastern languages as well as their various dialects. Dr Fatah’s Country Expert Reports cover a wide range of issues, including the general security situation, sufficiency of protection, crimes of honour, healthcare, corruption, and at-risk groups of different sexual, religious, political and cultural profiles.
Dr Shaul Gabbay
Email: gabbay@muslimworldexpert.com
Dr Shaul Gabbay acts as a resource for immigration attorneys seeking advice, counsel and expert testimony in asylum cases. Formerly the Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Israel in the Middle East at the University of Denver, he has published extensively on cultures and customs in all Muslim countries, persecution issues based on family dishonour, gender and homosexuality, and sociology and politics of the Muslim world. Professor Gabbay’s expertise helps immigration attorneys and judges understand key societal issues and trends in the Muslim world that have life-threatening repercussions for Muslim immigrants throughout the U.S. at risk of deportation. His oral testimony and written analysis draw on his extensive knowledge and examination of cultural practices in Muslim countries as well as his life experience growing up in the Middle East. More information is on his website www.muslimworldexpert.com.
Dr Kasia Grabska
Email: katarzyna.grabska@graduateinstitute.ch
Dr Kasia Grabska holds a PhD in development studies and anthropology from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. She has been researching and teaching in the field of refugee and humanitarian studies since 2002. She is currently a Research Fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and a visiting lecturer at the Afhad University for Women in Omdurman, Sudan. Her research areas include refugee rights in urban settings in Cairo and Khartoum, refugee repatriation from Kenya to South Sudan and adolescent girls’ displacement and migration in Sudan and Ethiopia.
Dr Adrian R. Marsh
Researcher in Romani Studies, University of Greenwich (London)
Email: romanistudies@mac.com
Telephone: +90 53 32 32 39 73
Dr Marsh is based in Istanbul, Turkey where he has been working with the Romani and Gypsy communities of the region since 2002. He gained his PhD in Romani Studies from Greenwich University (London), his MA (South East European Studies) from SOAS/SSEES and completed his BA Hons (1st) in East European History at SSEES, London. He has also been a Gypsy/Traveller Education Support Teacher in London. He teaches courses on Romani history and culture, trans-national forced migration, refugee studies and human rights and children’s rights in Turkey, Sweden, the UK, Albania, Kosovo, Rumania, Cyprus and Egypt. He is a frequent and accredited expert for the European Commission, Council of Europe and the European Parliament and has published widely on the issues of Roma rights and Romani children’s rights, Romani history, language and cultures. He has also been a consultant for a number of major NGO’s ( European Roma Rights Centre, Save the Children, Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly ) and has produced many research reports in both capacities. He has also acted as an expert witness in a number of refugee cases involving Romani and Gypsy people from Turkey, the Balkans and Egypt seeking asylum in the UK. He is of English Romany-Traveller origins himself.
Dr Paul Marshall
Email: pmarshall@hudson.org
Telephone: +20 22 56 38 90
Dr Marshall is the author and editor of over twenty books, the general editor of Religious Freedom in the World, and has done particular work on Egypt and more broadly on blasphemy and apostasy in a range of countries. Amongst his books that deal with Egypt are Egypt’s Endangered Christians, Massacre at the Millennium, Religious Freedom in the World (2008), and Silenced: How Blasphemy and Apostasy Codes are Choking Freedom Worldwide (2011, Oxford University Press). He has also given invited expert testimony to U.S. government bodies including the Helsinki Commission, the U.S. House of Representatives International Affairs Committee, and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He has been accepted as an expert witness on religious freedom issues in Egypt numerous times and has lectured on Egypt at a training session for INS and DHS Asylum Bureaus. His writings have been translated into Albanian, Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Ukrainian.
Hugh Miles
Email: hughmiles@alshafiemiles.com
Hugh Miles has acted as an expert witness and authenticated Arabic language documents in more than 150 asylum cases in the UK, Europe and N America. He lives in Cairo.
Hugh is the director of Al Shafie Miles, a business intelligence consultancy specialising in the Middle East and North Africa. Drawing on a network of highly experienced former UK foreign office officials and other experts, Al Shafie Miles helps its clients develop their strategic and commercial interests in the Arab world. ( www.alshafiemiles.com ). Further, he is the founder of Arab Digest, a private members club offering expert commentary and analysis on the Middle East and North Africa. Arab Digest has around 450 elite members worldwide, including decision-makers in business and politics, people in the British FCO and other foreign ministries, as well as others in the media, the academic world, energy industry etc. Business subscribers who find Arab Digest useful include blue-chip names such as Barclays, HSBC, BP, Chevron and BAE. ( www.ArabDigest.org )
Hugh is a freelance investigative journalist specialising in the Middle East and North Africa. He has worked with a wide variety of international media including the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, Guardian, Telegraph, Independent, CNBC, Economist, New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Policy, London Review of Books, Mirror, Express, Sun, and others. His journalism has appeared on the front pages of the Guardian, Telegraph, Independent and New York Times newspapers and he has written, produced and presented radio and TV programmes for the BBC and Al Jazeera English. ( www.hughmiles.com ). He is the author of two books, ‘Al Jazeera: How Arab TV News Challenged the World’ (published Jan 2005) and ‘Playing Cards in Cairo’ (April 2008). He has contributed to several other publications. Since 2005 Hugh has been a Contributing Editor of the American University in Cairo’s media journal.
Dr Richard A. Lobban
Email: RLobban@ric.edu
Tel: +1 401 46 72 857, or 603-744-6484
Dr Richard A Lobban is an anthropologist and early pioneer in social network modeling, archaeologist, Egyptologist, and Sudanist, foreign policy expert, human rights activist. He is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and African Studies at Rhode Island College, Providence, Rhode Island since 1972; also a lecturer at the Archaeological Institute of America and the Naval War College. He is an expert in Ancient Sudan and Ancient Egypt, with a particular focus on Nubia. Lobban has authored numerous books and publications such as the Historical Dictionary of Ancient and Medieval Nubia, Historical Dictionary of Sudan (2002), and Social Networks in Urban Sudan (1973). He has also authored/co-authored books such as Historical dictionary of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau (1997), Cape Verde: Crioulo colony to independent nation (1995), Historical dictionary of Cape Verde (2007), and Middle Eastern women and the invisible economy (1998).
Dr George Joffé
Tel: +44 20 76 04 30 27
Email: email@georgejoffe.com / Skype: george.joffe
Professor Joffé is prepared to provide country of origin experts witness statements for Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morroco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. He is now retired but is still affiliated to the London Middle East Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Until 2017, Professor Joffé was an affiliated lecturer at the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) in the University of Cambridge, where he also ran the Centre for North African Studies. From 2005 to 2010, he was a research fellow at the Centre of Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford. From 1997 to 2000, Professor Joffé was the deputy director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. He regularly addresses professional audiences at the NATO Defence College in Rome, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy in Geneva, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry and NOREF in Oslo and the Royal College of Defence Studies in London. He has also advised the European Commission (DG Relex), EuropeAid and the new External Action Service.
Dr Scott Long (LGBTI)
Email: scottlong1980@gmail.com
Dr Scott Long, PhD, Harvard, has led a long career in LGBTI rights activism focusing on Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa. He has taught in Hungary, Romania and the Human Rights Program of Harvard Law School. Dr Scott Long was programme director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) from 1996 to 2002 and led the organisation’s advocacy at the 2001 UN General Assembly’s Special Session on HIV/AIDS. He founded and directed the Human Rights Watch’s LGBT Rights Program until 2010 and has produced reports on the situation of LGBTI persons in Egypt, Iraq and Iran, discrimination against binational same-sex couples in the United States, as well as working with LGBTI activists in Russia. Dr Scott Long blogs on human rights-related issues on http://paper-bird.net/.
Dr Mariz Tadros (FGM)
Email: M.Tadros@ids.ac.uk
Mariz Tadros is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University. Dr Tadros is also the Co-leader of the Power and Popular Politics Cluster at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. She is currently a Co-Director of the DFID-supported RPC on Social and Political Action for Empowerment and Accountability. Prior to joining the University of Sussex, Mariz was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the American University in Cairo and worked for many years as a journalist for Al-Ahram Weekly English language newspaper in Cairo where she published over 300 articles on a variety of subjects. Dr Tadros specialises in the politics and human development of the Middle East and her research areas include democratisation, Islamist politics, gender, sectarianism, human security and religion and development. Mariz has authored over one hundred publications, and her books include: Resistance, Revolt, and Gender Justice in Egypt, The Muslim Brotherhood in Contemporary Egypt: Democracy redefined or confined? and Copts at the Crossroads: The challenges of building an inclusive democracy in contemporary Egypt. Mariz is also editor of Women in Politics: Gender, Power and Development and Co-Editor of the IDS Bulletin Ruptures and Ripple Effects in the Middle East and Beyond.
Dr Alan George
Email: arg1@compuserve.com
Dr George is a consultant, writer and journalist, with extensive knowledge of the Middle East. Since 1984 he has worked as a freelance journalist, researcher and expert witness in political asylum cases involving the Middle East. He frequently commentates on Middle Eastern affairs for radio and television and contributes to the Observer, the Independent and the Guardian. He is a former Head of Research at the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce and a former Assistant Director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU). Since 2003, Dr George has acted as an Expert Witness for UK, US and European asylum and immigration tribunals, dealing with cases involving Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories and has produced some 4,000 reports.