JEDDAH: Syrian artist Assala Nasri announced the release date and name of her new album, due out this summer.
Assala posted a picture on her personal Twitter account revealing information about the album produced by Stargate that is supposed to be released on August 15, titled, ”Mohtamma Bel Tafasil,” meaning “Interested in Detail.”
The lyrics were written by poet Amir Taima, and the music has been composed by Ehab Abdel Wahid.
Every day, a countdown post is being posted on Assala’s Twitter account for all her fans to stay posted because she is so popular in the Middle East.
She released her first album, in 1992, and then became one of the most important female singers in the Arab world after the release of “Lao Te’arafo” in 1993, in which she worked with leading Egyptian composers.
Assala has won many awards during her artistic career, winning the 1994 Best Artist Award in Dubai, the “Oscar for the Middle East” (Golden Knight) in 1995.
Assala participated in many Arab and international festivals including the Carthage, Jerash and Dubai festivals. She also received Bahraini citizenship after her participation in the Operetta of Love and Loyalty at the national day celebrations.
Assala Nasri’s last album was released in 2012. On this album, she collaborated with composer Hassan Shafei, writer Ayman Bahgat Qamar and singer Hossam Habib, whom she thanked on the cover of the album.
Her latest work was the weekly show “Sola” on Dubai TV, which launched its second season in November 2012, as an artistic program where artists host each episode with a separate title.
Assala’s new album to be in stores this month
Assala’s new album to be in stores this month
Arts festival’s decision to exclude Palestinian author spurs boycott
- A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival
SYDENY: A top Australian arts festival has seen the withdrawal of dozens of writers in a backlash against its decision to bar an Australian Palestinian author after the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as moves to curb antisemitism spur free speech concerns.
The shooting which killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec. 14 sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism. Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by Daesh.
The Adelaide Festival board said last Thursday it would disinvite Randa Abdel-Fattah from February’s Writers Week in the state of South Australia because “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.”
FASTFACTS
• Abdel-Fattah responded, saying it was ‘a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.’
• Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival.
Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
Among the boycotting authors, Kathy Lette wrote on social media the decision to bar Abdel-Fattah “sends a divisive and plainly discriminatory message that platforming Australian Palestinians is ‘culturally insensitive.'”
The Adelaide Festival said in a statement on Monday that three board members and the chairperson had resigned. The festival’s executive director, Julian Hobba, said the arts body was “navigating a complex moment.”
a complex and unprecedented moment” after the “significant community response” to the board decision.
In the days after the Bondi Beach attack, Jewish community groups and the Israeli government criticized Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for failing to act on a rise in antisemitic attacks and criticized protest marches against Israel’s war in Gaza held since 2023.
Albanese said last week a Royal Commission will consider the events of the shooting as well as antisemitism and social cohesion in Australia. Albanese said on Monday he would recall parliament next week to pass tougher hate speech laws.
On Monday, New South Wales state premier Chris Minns announced new rules that would allow local councils to cut off power and water to illegally operating prayer halls.
Minns said the new rules were prompted by the difficulty in closing a prayer hall in Sydney linked to a cleric found by a court to have made statements intimidating Jewish Australians.
The mayor of the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield said the rules were ill-considered and councils should not be responsible for determining hate speech.
“Freedom of speech is something that should always be allowed, as long as it is done in a peaceful way,” Mayor Frank Carbone told Reuters.
