Hugh Miles is an Arabic and French speaking journalist who has been living in Cairo for most of the past 20 years researching and writing about all aspects of Arab society and culture. Since 2004 Miles has covered news in North Africa and the Middle East region professionally for diverse international media including the BBC, Al Jazeera, New York Times, Telegraph, Guardian, London Review of Books, Mirror, Mail, Sun and many others. He is a contributor to the Global Organized Crime Index designed to assess levels of organised crime in 193 UN member states and gives regular, ongoing training sessions to the UK FCDO about organised crime in the Middle East as well as, separately, the media environment in the Middle East.
Miles is the founder of Arab Digest, an independent UK ltd. media company specialising in Arab affairs. Arab Digest is an online private members club where business leaders and regional experts discuss the latest developments in the Middle East and North Africa each day. Paying members include the United Nations, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, The Economist, Oxford University, King’s College London University, Princeton University, BAE, Chevron and many more.
Hugh Miles is an expert on the political and security situation in the Arab countries in which he has worked. Since 2011 he has lived in Cairo and so is familiar with day to day life in Egypt in particular, and much of his work has involved Egypt but he has also worked on cases to do with many other Arab countries.
As an expert witness he has given evidence in over 100 legal proceedings in the UK and other European countries. Most of these cases have been asylum cases. Several cases he has been involved with have lead to people being awarded political asylum in the West. In October 2018 he was cross examined in court for the first time by Home Office barristers in a UK asylum case. The judge accepted all his expert evidence and on this basis the applicant was awarded political asylum days afterwards.
The Expert has also authenticated many different kinds of Arabic language documents in dozens of legal cases in Europe and the US.
Written around 300 authentication and expert witness reports in UK, US and European cases. Cross examined in court in various family and immigration cases
My print journalism on the Arab world has been published on the front pages of the Guardian, Independent, Telegraph and New York Times. I am an award-winning author. I have written two books about the Arab world, “Al Jazeera - How Arab TV News Challenged the World” (published 2005) and “Playing Cards in Cairo” (2008). I have contributed to several more including “Les Arabes parlent aux Arabes : La révolution de l'information dans le monde arabe” (May 2009), “Al Manakh 2: Export Gulf” (April 2010), “Revolution in the Arab World” (Feb 2011, #1 Kindle Bestseller about the Middle East), and “National Broadcasting and State Policy in Arab Countries” (Jan 2013).