Sameera Aziz

Sameera Aziz (سميرة عزيز) is a Saudi media personality, social worker, radio host, and businesswoman.

She is a Jeddah-based Saudi national.

Her companies are Sameera Aziz Group and Sameera Aziz Entertainment, the latter of which was the first Saudi production house in India.

Aziz is the first Saudi female director in Bollywood.

Sameera Aziz was born on 24 June 1976 in Al-Khober, Saudi Arabia, to Aziz-ur-Rehman and Mehar Afroz.

She has two brothers, and is the only daughter.

Her early education was completed abroad, in Karachi's Gulistan Shah Abdul Latif School, and later at P.E.C.H.S. Girl's College and the University of Karachi.

She married at the age of fifteen and completed her education after her marriage.

Aziz has two children.

She completed her PhD thesis in trade relations, and earned two master's degrees, one in international relations, and the second in journalism.

She then went to the United States to study filmmaking in Hollywood.

She did postgraduate work in mass communication and film direction at Livewires-The Media Institute in Mumbai, India.

She is currently completing a PhD at Osmania University in Hyderabad, India.

According to the book Sold For Dowry, she was sold as a bride and forbidden to further her education as had been promised.

According to Saudi customs, a groom gives the dowry amount to the bride, but the book claims that she was unaware of the dowry amount her step mother took on her behalf, and she was only told that she would be permitted to further her education and pursue a media career after marriage.

Aziz is a chief editor of business and entertainment publications.

She is a past president of the Asian Information Agency (AIA), a worldwide news service.

She was also the Saudi country head of the South Asian Regional Information Agency, and the voice of SAARC countries (SARIA).

She served as the Bureau Chief of the first Saudi independent English news website The Peninsula Times.

During 1999 she was a writer for Gulf News and several other Pakistan-based newspapers.

She also served as the supervising editor of the women's sections in Urdu News and Urdu Magazine, owned by the Saudi Research and Marketing Group.

Her columns and features are written exclusively in English and Urdu, and translated into other languages.

She focuses on Saudi domestic, social, cultural, educational and expatriate's issues, as well as Saudi Arabia's relationship with the international community.

She has conducted undercover sting operations.

Some of her work considers the challenges of social and labour issues, human rights, women's rights, violence against children, and other topics of concern to the community.

Aziz is known as a human rights' volunteer, raising awareness of child marriage.

She was simultaneously managing editor of Awaz, a youth-oriented weekly Urdu newspaper, published by parent company Okaz, that ceased publication in 2003, and also the managing editor of Fresh, a quarterly magazine published by Saudi Gazette's Okaz publications.

She also spoke out about domestic violence after a TV presenter, Rania Al-Baz, was assaulted by her husband in 2004.

In July 2006, she wrote a heart-wrenching anthem "Lahu Lahu Lebanon" (Lebanon under blood) for her campaign to support Lebanese victims in 2006 Lebanon War, also called "the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War."

Aziz received permanent honor of one of the top 100 influential media members list under the hospitality of Saudi Arabian Society for Culture & Arts in Madina City under the Saudi Ministry of Culture.

In 2009, she wrote and spoke about child abuse that she witnessed.

Aziz has a weekly radio show, "Marhaba with Sameera Aziz," heard on Asian Radio Live, based in the United Kingdom.

She is an elected Saudi Director of the United Nations' affiliated Global Sports Federation (GSF).

Aziz is the first Saudi novelist of the Urdu Language to publish in Saudi Arabia.

Her poems in the Urdu language have been published in various magazines and newspapers.

She has participated in poetic symposia and has received awards.

Until 2013, she was a senior editor of the Jeddah-based Saudi Gazette, one of the two English-language newspapers printed in the country.

Her events company holds a Guinness World Record for making world's largest human-picture mosaic in 2017.

She is the first Saudi novelist to publish in the Urdu language in Saudi Arabia.

She was named the ambassador for Women and Children in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by the SPMUDA International Organization.