Colombia
Features for the New York Times, Sunday Times, Prospect Magazine, Pitchfork, Dazed, Delayed Gratification, etc.
News for the BBC, the Times, the Telegraph, Sky News, & various UK local news outlets.
Newsreader and host of the Colombia Calling podcast, plus occasional TV & radio.
Research and analysis on politics and human rights quoted by the Guardian, BBC, CNN, Time Magazine, etc - and by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression.
Fluent English & Spanish | NCTJ-accredited via Press Association
Crisalida, a LGBTQ collective from San Rafael, Colombia, was brutalised under paramilitary occupation of the small Andean town. Their leader was murdered and many went into hiding, but they are now emerging defiant, demanding justice for the war crimes committed against them.
Also in print - front page of Arts Section 19/06 Across Latin America, shelves labeled “ciencia ficción” have long been filled with translations of H.P. Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury. But their reign over the region’s bookcases may be drawing to a close. [NB Also translated into Spanish by the New York Times]
A man perches on a rock, holding a small microphone over a roaring river, water tumbling over boulders, flanked by lush jungle and hanging vines. The Andes Mountains rise up on all sides, crumpled-paper ridges shrouded in gauzy clouds. He stretches his arm out - gripping tightly, listening intently.
The elusive aquatic mammal, which is vital to the jungle ecosystem, risks being hunted and trafficked to extinction. But a group of 'guardians' are fighting back
Canapés and dust masks in Colombia as the mayor throws a surreal party for the demolition of Pablo Escobar's former home. Also in print on 3 April 2019.
Deep in the Colombian rainforest lies the world’s largest concentration of rock art. What does it reveal about the people who painted it 20,000 years ago?
From a tiny purple cabin, in a valley flanked by four volcanoes, a group of young journalists is pushing back against a tide of white noise, creating space for marginalised young people.
A peace deal should have consigned Colombia’s guerrilla conflict to history. But a new generation of armed groups has taken hold—and the country is stuck between the violence of old and new. Also in print - July 2022 issue.
"COVID is not killing us. Armed groups are killing us." FARC groups have begun murdering and taking hostages in retribution for violations of their coronavirus measures.
Politics & Analysis
I covered the Colombian elections for The Times, Sunday Times, and Times Radio in 2022 - numerous publications in print and online.
Longform interview about Colombia's election of its first ever left wing government - and it's first even Female Afro-Colombian Vice-President - with Erlendy Cuero of Afrodes.
TV | Radio | Podcast
Since 2020, I have written and delivered the news segment for this weekly podcast. I also regularly host, doing longform interviews with a huge range of guests - from writers and translators to scientists and researchers. The podcast has around 10,000 listeners per month.
Live Interview on the Colombian Elections
My weekly news briefing via Substack and WhatsApp: a five-minute audio and a bullet-point run-down of the week's top stories from Colombia - delivered every Monday.
How did a handful of companies come to dominate our digital lives? What does it mean for us and how might we take that power back? Taming The Titans: ARTICLE 19's new podcast on Big Tech and human rights, hosted by Emily Hart.
"Conflict was not only played out on the battlefield, but also in the symbolic field." Emily Hart and renowned Colombian political scientist María Emma Wills Obregón discuss collective memory, polarisation and conflict resolution - and how a country can weave itself back together after decades of war.
Emily Hart sits with Booker Prize Chair Frank Wynne, tracing his incredible career from the start of his linguistic journey to his award-winning translation of writers across Latin America and the francophone world - particularly his work on cult Colombian author and 'Enemy Number 1 of Macondo' - Andrés Caicedo.
Colombian Media
Exclusive feature for Latin America Reports, where I was Contributing Editor
Hundreds gathered at a Medellin art festival on Monday to demonstrate against the spiralling violence and impunity that plague Colombia's second largest city. Central to the opening night was one of the latest victims of violence, graphic artist Mauricio Ospina.
If you glance up at the hills above the centre, into the outskirts of the city, there are different stories to be told, complex stories which don’t fit the neat narrative of the “post-narco” city which authorities are ever-keen to tell.
The Pope shared a joint with a Bolivian President. Vaccinations increase your chance of developing AIDS. A 1960s sci-fi movie predicted the arrival of the Omicron variant.
Human Rights Research
Internet blackouts. Strategic lawsuits against journalists. Regulations restricting the activities of NGOs. The weaponisation of health and security policies. These are all strategies that governments around the world are increasingly using to curtail the right to dissent, protest, and even just access information.
I have been researcher and author of this report for five years - data-based research which tracks freedom of expression across the world.
Op-Ed ghostwritten for ARTICLE 19's CEO Quinn McKew
Austria's biggest magazine on Urbanism covered my research on the urban dynamics of Medellín.
In my first year as author of the Global Expression Report, the Guardian ran my research with a double page spread and a front page nib.
Op-Ed ghostwritten for ARTICLE 19's CEO Quinn McKew.
Travel | Review
On Friday night, in the midst of a storm, Patti Smith recited her poem Hecatombe - an homage to author Roberto Bolaño; she then alternated between spoken word and musical work, speaking of hope in the face of the challenges ahead, and urging us to find ways to be together - and to love.
Ella Hickson's 'The Writer' is a blistering two hours of unanswered questions. It is relentless and hopeless, but ultimately, to use its own words, 'defibrillating'. The Writer of the title walks the stage in numerous guises, from Lara Rossi's furious 24 year old to Romola Garai's Writer, with various personas from mythical narrator to exasperated playwright.
The rights of women on their periods in police custody are being violated in England and Wales, according to police custody watchdog the Independent Custody Visitation Association (ICVA). "I know what it's like as a woman, to feel dirty, and like you don't have control, bleeding...
Local News - Reporting from the UK
Poet William Blake, perhaps the most famous member of the Druid Order, wrote, "I have conversed with the spiritual sun. I saw him on Primrose Hill." Photos mine.
In 2018, TOYS 'R' US will be closing 26 of its UK stores, with 800 jobs at risk, as toy shops disappear and high street outlets struggle across the country.
120 German spies operated in Britain from 1914 to 1918. Print and E-Edition of Ham&High, p18 http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&edid=f8c3d395-a3cb-47a2-9ee9-aa43dfe48053
Travel and Lifestyle
Human Rights Research & NGO Reports
A woman in rural Mexico recently told my colleague, "We've always been told we don't have a voice, but that's not true. Since we began looking for information, my life changed, and the lives of other people in the community as well." Today, 28 September, is International Right to Know Day.
Protest is increasingly going digital. Whether it is using the internet to organise and report physical acts of protest, using online space as a platform on which to take action, or targeting online infrastructure itself: across the world, people are taking their right to protest online.
This week, cartoonist and political satirist Zunar spoke to ARTICLE 19's Emily Hart about politics, satire, and his upcoming trial.
Writing Rights Ltd - Editing and Consultancy
An investigation into use of social platforms and dating apps by the LGBTQ community in Egypt, Lebanon, and Iran.