Eric de Vries: Cham Muslims of Cambodia

Khmer Islam is an audio slideshow produced by photographer Eric de Vries of the Khmer Islam, known as the Cham Muslims. These are members of an ethnic group in villages near the Mekong and Tonle Sap river in Cambodia. Most Chams in Cambodia are involved in fishing and agriculture.

Eric photographed the series at the Islam Spiritual Center, Russei Chrouy village, Masjid-Alrahmani mosque north of Phnom Penh, at the Masjid Thom Dubai mosque on the borders of Boeung Kak lake and at the Nurunnaim Mosque and Chrang Chamreh village on National Road 5.

Eric de Vries lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he's been traveling since 2000, and TTP has featured his work on a previous post.

Shawn Baldwin: Egypt

Photo © Shawn Baldwin-All Rights Reserved
Shawn Baldwin is a photographer based in Cairo, Egypt, whose work regularly appear in The New York Times. For the past 10 years he covered major news events in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East including the war in Iraq.

His work was recently been exhibited in New York and was published in most major publications including Time, Newsweek, US News, the Guardian and Le Monde. In addition to editorial work, corporate assignments included J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Nike.

Shawn's galleries are predominantly of the Middle East; Egypt (which I feature here), Iraq, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea and Algeria. His Egypt gallery is varied, with photographs of mass weddings to political rallies. His photograph of the sugar cane juice being poured by an anonymous hand and the expectant look on the young girl's face framed by the tap is a lovely story-telling composition.

I also featured Shawn's work on Cairo with the New York Times in a previous TTP post.

NYT: The Girls of Mirwais School

Image © Danfung Dennis/NYT-All Rights Reserved
"Then the man pulled Shamsia’s burqa from her head and sprayed her face with burning acid. Scars, jagged and discolored, now spread across Shamsia’s eyelids and most of her left cheek. These days, her vision goes blurry, making it hard for her to read."

The New York Times features Danfung Dennis' photographs in a slideshow The Resilience of Kandahar. We all remember how 11 young Afghan schoolgirls were injured last November when they were sprayed with acid by men who were enraged by their attending school. An accompanying article by Dexter Flikins is worth reading, and provides context to the slideshow.

It's a testament to these 11 young schoolgirls' courage and resilience that nearly all of them are back at the Mirwais School for Girls. Almost all the 1300 female students in this deeply conservative community of Kandahar have returned as well.

Shamsia, one of the girls who was badly disfigured in the attack, is quoted as saying:" “The people who did this, do not feel the pain of others.” By the way, the name of this brave girl means 'sunshine', and she's the one on the right of the picture above..

If Afghanistan ever returns to be a country where these atrocities no longer occur, it'll be because of Shamsia and her ilk...not because of the corrupt governance of Hamid Karzai and his entourage.