Iyad El-Baghdadi PRESIDENT OF KAWAAKIBI FOUNDATION

Iyad el-Baghdadi is a Palestinian activist and writer. Since 2011, he has been a prominent online voice and an internationally recognised intellectual. For his Arab Spring activism, he was summarily jailed and expelled from the UAE in 2014. He was subsequently granted political asylum in Norway. In 2019, the CIA alerted Norwegian authorities that he had become a target of the Saudi regime and has been under protection by Norwegian authorities since. El-Baghdadi is the founder of the Kawaakibi Foundation. He is a fellow of Norwegian think Civita and a board member of the Munathara Initiative. His book, “The Middle East Crisis Factory” is due to come out in 2021.