The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) explores the Middle East through the region’s media. MEMRI bridges the language gap which exists between the West and the Middle East, providing timely translations of Arabic, Persian, Urdu-Pashtu, and Turkish media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East.
Founded in February 1998 to inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East, MEMRI is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization. MEMRI’s headquarters is located in Washington, DC with branch offices in London, Rome, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Shanghai and Tokyo. MEMRI research is translated to English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Hebrew.
MEMRI.org is one of the most widely respected and utilized resources online about the Middle East. It is a significant dissemination tool, providing free translation of news from the Arab and Muslim world. MEMRI’s Special Dispatch, Inquiry & Analysis, and Special Report series can be found on the site, and together they include over 2,000 documents. Thus, MEMRI maintains the largest archive in the world of translated Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, and Urdu research material from the past decade.
MEMRI is committed to giving readers, in both the East and the West, comprehensive access to the primary-source material from the Arab and Muslim world that we translate. For this reason, English is the primary language into which we translate, and our translations into English are the most representative of the body of our work and our research.
Therefore, we encourage our readers of other languages to avail themselves of our English-language archives whenever possible, since our archives in the other languages are not nearly as comprehensive.
This year MEMRI TV launched both a re-designed website and a player. The new re-designed website includes features such as embedding codes and also the ability to share a video on all the major social networking sites. The re-designed player has new features such as: sharing the video on the major social networking sites; the ability to “dim the lights” to enhance viewing; the option to expand the video player to full screen; and many other upgraded features.
The MEMRI Blog operating since November 2006, was created to complement MEMRI’s monitoring and research efforts – efforts which had until then focused on shapers of public opinion, but since the blog's establishment focus also on breaking news. In its short time online, the MEMRI Blog's readership has grown steadily, with more and more blogs linking to our site. Since its launch, the blog has been visited millions of times.
In response to the dire need for translations from Urdu in the War on Terror – of which MEMRI was told by high-ranking government officials – MEMRI launched its Urdu Media Project in August 2007. In January 2008, MEMRI expanded the Urdu Media Project to include the MEMRI Urdu-Pashtu Blog. The Urdu/Pashto project focuses on translations from open-source Urdu- and Pashtu- language newspapers and websites. Its primary sources are material from Pakistan and the surrounding countries, as well as Urdu-language media outlets and websites in the U.K.
To enhance MEMRI's Iran Studies Project, MEMRI is now introducing a separate Iran Media News Blog. This blog will focus on breaking news and other developments from Iran. Like the Iran Studies Project, the Iran Media News Blog will provide primary-source material translated from Iranian media and websites.
In view of the historical developments that have been taking place recently in Turkey – developments that will determine the future of the Turkish republic, its relations with its neighbors in the region, and its position vis-à-vis, or its alignment with, the E.U. and the U.S. – MEMRI has launched its Turkish Media Blog. This blog contains translations of speeches, interviews, sermons, and segments from TV and film programs in Turkish, found on YouTube and other online video sites.
This is the official blog from MEMRI's Reform Project. MEMRI’s Reform project monitors advocates of reform in the Arab and Muslim world, and the obstacles that they face in advancing their cause. The goal of this project is to provide reformists with a platform from which they can reach out to their societies and to religious, political, and educational leaders while also providing Western policy makers with a solid basis for long-term strategic plans aimed at supporting this effort. This blog will focus on how social media outlets are being used in the Arab and Muslim world to promote Democratization, Human and Social Rights.
Visit the MEMRI Arab Culture blog daily for news updates you will find nowhere else. This blog focuses on the vibrant cinema scene in the Arab and Muslim world, and on works, both fiction and non-fiction, by the most influential authors and publishing houses in the Middle East. It explores the Middle East through its popular music – especially music that is politically oriented and musicians who are also social activists – and also examines other Arab cultural and popular trends.
This project documents antisemitic themes in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu-Pashtu, and Turkish newspaper reports, editorials, and other media sources, & maintains the largest archive in the world of translated material on this subject from the past decade. In 2009, MEMRI, in conjunction with The Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, re-dedicated the archives, which became the repository of the MEMRI Antisemitism Documentation Project.
The Archives also include a blog, which on a daily basis monitors antisemitic themes in the Arabic-, Farsi-, Urdu-Pashtu- & Turkish-language press & media websites, & posts news, cartoons, MEMRI TV clips, & highlights of MEMRI research.
MEMRI launched a re-designed Urdu-Pashtu Media Project website, which is a central source that tracks emerging developments in jihadist movements in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and other South Asian countries. It also publishes reports on issues of individual liberty and religious and cultural freedom in South Asia, especially those involving challenges to democratic institutions, women’s rights, Islamic reform, and organized ideological violence against minorities like Christians, Hindus, Ahmadi Muslims, and other Islamic sects.
As part of our Jihad & Terrorism Studies Project, MEMRI began a new project to monitor Islamist websites last year. The purpose of the Islamists Websites Monitor Project, which is part of our Jihad & Terrorism Studies Project, is to keep Western audiences informed about the steadily growing phenomenon of jihadist sites on the Internet, which are used by terrorist organizations and their supporters to spread their extremist message and to recruit funds and activists.
This page is part of the MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor Project, which scrutinizes Islamist terrorism worldwide with a special focus on the Arab world, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor Project focuses on threats posed by independent terror organizations as well as by state-sponsored terrorism from the most important websites, blogs, print media, visual media, and audio media. This page will give users headlines from the MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor Project all in one central location.
The MEMRI Palestinian Media Studies Project website is a central resource for all MEMRI translations and analyses from the Palestinian media, schoolbooks, and sermons from the past 12 years; it is the largest archive in the world of such research. Categories on the page include Inquiry and Analysis series archives; cartoons from the Palestinian media; blog posts from the MEMRI Blog on Palestinian issues; and featured reports. Also on the page are MEMRI TV clips from the Palestinian media, with new ones posted daily – and videos from the extensive MEMRI Palestinian video archives on YouTube. MEMRI subscribers can bookmark this page and share it with friends via Twitter, Facebook, and other popular social media sites.
The MEMRI Economic Blog was launched in July 2007 to fill to gaps in the Western media’s coverage of economic news and developments in the Middle East. An example of the need for this blog is illustrated by the fact that while the Islamic banking sector rapidly grows, elevating terminology like sukuk (Islamic bonds) and murabaha (profit-sharing in lieu of interest, which is prohibited by Islam) to world recognition, much of this phenomenon is overshadowed by the more dramatic political events in the region.
This initiative monitors and translates cartoons from websites and newspapers from the Middle East, Iran, South Asia, and Turkey, with categories including Reform and Democratization, Anti-Americanism, Conspiracy Theories, and Antisemitism. The initiative also includes major reports on specific current events that have been the subject of numerous cartoons.
Headquartered in Washington, DC, MEMRI staffers are located around the world, translating every day from hundreds of Arabic, Farsi, Dari, Hindi, Urdu/Pashtu, and Turkish newspapers, magazines, television shows, and websites. The production and distribution of our materials, as well as the maintenance of our websites, is an increasingly costly undertaking. Please consider donating to MEMRI today.
Donating online is easy and secure, and also keeps our administrative costs down. To contribute online, visit here. MEMRI is a 501(c)(3) status organization, and your donation to MEMRI is tax-deductible.
Members of the media, government, military and academia can request MEMRI TV clips and other research as well as receive answers to other questions that they might have by visiting and submitting a form from this page.
MEMRI's work directly supports fighting the U.S. War on Terror. Highly trained staff thoroughly translates and analyze open-source materials that include television programming, radio, newspapers, textbooks, and websites. Every single day, MEMRI receives requests from members of the U.S. government, military, and legislature. Since September 11, 2001, the demand for this material has significantly increased – providing thousands of pages of translated documents of Arab, Iranian, Urdu, Pashtu, Hindi, Dari, and Turkish print media, terrorist websites, school books, and tens of thousands of hours of translated footage from Arab and Iranian television.
MEMRI readers can purchase exclusive reports and videos from MEMRI's archives. Visit this page often for updated items for sale.
Join the thousands of MEMRI users who are connecting to MEMRI on social networking sites. MEMRI analysis, research and videos are now available through all leading social networking platforms, and also via our customized MEMRI widget. MEMRI research can be seen, read, viewed and shared with ease.
