Birth: 1/4/1955 Death:NULL/NULL/NULL
Born in Jerusalem on 1 April 1955 to a Christian family; brother of Jonathan Kuttab; raised in Bethlehem; studied Business Administration at Messiah College in the USA, graduating with a BA in 1975; returned to Jerusalem in 1979 and began working for the Jerusalem-based Al-Fajr newspaper, first as business manager, then as features reporter and from 1982-87 as Managing Editor of its English edition; served as coordinator for the Jerusalem Chapter of the Arab-American Anti Discrimination Committee from 1981-89; member of the Arab Journalists’ Association since 1981; took courses in Journalism at Birzeit University in 1982; worked as free-lance journalist and columnist for a variety of media organizations; member of the Arab Charitable Society of Bethlehem since 1985; political advisor to Reuters since 1987; columnist with Al-Quds newspaper from 1987-1993, where he was the first Palestinian to conduct exclusive interviews with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, as well as other Israeli leaders; was the West Bank reporter for the Nazareth-based As-Senara from 1987-1992; received the Andrew Stern Annual Press Award in 1988 for promoting Arab-Jewish understanding; correspondent for the Middle East International and Mideast Mirror since 1989; stringer at the Pacifica Radio, USA, since 1990 and at the Japanese daily newspaper Yomuri Shimbum since 1991; producer of Al-Quds TV productions since 1990; has also worked as columnist for a number of regional newspapers and published articles in many international newspapers and periodicals; Secretary and member of the Board of Trustees of the Palestinian National Theater in Jerusalem (Al-Hakawati); founded the Jerusalem Film Institute in 1990 and served as its Pres. until 1995; was Executive Director in several films, incl. Palestinian Diaries (1989), We Are God’s People (1990), Jerusalem Under Siege (1991), Marda – A Story of a Land (1992), and On the Edge of Peace (1994); has repeatedly protested the PA’s press policies (especially the closure of the pro-Jordanian An-Nahar newspaper in July 1994); was consequently banned by the PA from writing in Al-Quds newspaper under his own name; served as Co-Director of Internews Middle East Institute in Jerusalem in 1994; established the Arabic Media Internet Network (AMIN) www.amin.org in 1995 (website that attempts to provide alternative media content in Arabic); founder and Director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al-Quds University in Ramallah since 1996; within the Institute established also Al-Quds Educational Television; was arrested without charge by PA authorities in May 1997 after broadcasting live proceedings of the PLC; and released after a week; since 1998, involved in the Palestinian-Israeli Sesame Street show for children; founder in 1999 and Director since the first Internet-radio station in the Arab World, AmmanNet; in 2000 and 2002, carried out training workshops in Iran as a UNESCO media expert; has received several awards, incl. the Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists (1996, New York), Freedom to Write Award (PEN, USA), and – together with Israeli journalist Gideon Levy – the first Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media (2003, Leipzig Media Institute, Germany); is one of 50 recipients of the World Press Freedom Hero Award given by the International Press Institute; currently lives in Amman, Jordan.
