Diaa Hadid
Diaa Hadid chiefly covers Pakistan and Afghanistan for NPR News. She is based in NPR's bureau in Islamabad. There, Hadid and her team were awarded a Murrow in 2019 for hard news for their story on why abortion rates in Pakistan are among the highest in the world.
Hadid has also documented the culture war surrounding Valentines' Day in Pakistan, the country's love affair with Vespa scooters and the struggle of a band of women and girls to ride their bikes in public. She visited a town notorious in Pakistan for a series of child rapes and murders, and attended class with young Pakistanis racing to learn Mandarin as China's influence over the country expands.
Hadid joined NPR after reporting from the Middle East for over a decade. She worked as a correspondent for The New York Times from March 2015 to March 2017, and she was a correspondent for The Associated Press from 2006 to 2015.
Hadid documented the collapse of Gadhafi's rule in Libya from the capital, Tripoli. In Cairo's Tahrir Square, she wrote of revolutionary upheaval sweeping Egypt. She covered the violence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria from Baghdad, Erbil and Dohuk. From Beirut, she was the first to report on widespread malnutrition and starvation inside a besieged rebel district near Damascus. She also covered Syria's war from Damascus, Homs, Tartous and Latakia.
Her favorite stories are about people and moments that capture the complexity of the places she covers.
They include her story on a lonely-hearts club in Gaza, run by the militant Islamic group Hamas. She unraveled the mysterious murder of a militant commander, discovering that he was killed for being gay. In the West Bank, she profiled Israel's youngest prisoner, a 12-year-old Palestinian girl who got her first period while being interrogated.
In Syria, she met the last great storyteller of Damascus, whose own trajectory of loss reflected that of his country. In Libya, she profiled a synagogue that once was the beating heart of Tripoli's Jewish community.
In Baghdad, Hadid met women who risked their lives to visit beauty salons in a quiet rebellion against extremism and war. In Lebanon, she chronicled how poverty was pushing Syrian refugee women into survival sex.
Hadid documented the Muslim pilgrimage to holy sites in Saudi Arabia, known as the Hajj, using video, photographs and essays.
Hadid began her career as a reporter for The Gulf News in Dubai in 2004, covering the abuse and hardships of foreign workers in the United Arab Emirates. She was raised in Canberra by a Lebanese father and an Egyptian mother. She graduated from the Australian National University with a B.A. (with Honors) specializing in Arabic, a language she speaks fluently. She also makes do in Hebrew and Spanish.
Her passions are her daughter, photography, cooking, vintage dress shopping and listening to the radio. She sings really badly, but that won't stop her.
Meet Hadid on Twitter @diaahadid, or see her photos on Instagram. She also often posts up her work on her community Facebook page.
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Voters in Pakistan head to the polls Wednesday, and will transfer power from one civilian government to another for only the second time in the country's history.
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Nearly a decade after the Pakistani army pushed out the Taliban from a scenic mountain region known as the "Switzerland of Pakistan," residents say the military has overstayed its welcome. -
A report from the front lines. Obstacles range from violence aimed at vaccinators to social media campaigns against vaccines. Not to mention classism. -
Health workers have made some large strides against polio but getting to zero is elusive. There's violence against workers and anti-vaccination advocates use social media to frighten parents.
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A dozen lawyers are helping other women in the Swat Valley with divorce, custody and inheritance cases. Some of the women lawyers defied the Taliban to study law and continue to endure threats. -
Ahsan Iqbal was shot after leaving a political gathering in his hometown of Narowal, in Pakistan's state of Punjab. The attacker is reportedly a member of a hard-line Muslim group. -
The country's Supreme Court ruled unanimously to impose the lifetime ban on Sharif, citing allegations of corruption against the venerable political figure. -
A new rights movement is led by an activist from South Waziristan, a front line in the war on terrorism. Manzoor Pashteen has attracted thousands of followers in his nonviolent push for reform. -
Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai is in Pakistan — her first trip back since she was shot in the head by the Taliban five years ago. She was given a dignitary's welcome.
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With help from China, Pakistan's government is building a 16-mile-long metro in Lahore to ease traffic. But it comes with a catch. It passes near many of the city's historical buildings.
