MBS: The dismal consistency of Saudi tyranny
“Were we wrong to have thought that MBS could bring progress to Saudi Arabia?” Ash’s @masoudtarek writes about the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia in a new review essay… Read more »
Category: Middle East/North Africa
Regimes using pandemic to ‘tighten chokehold’ on freedoms
🇿🇼 #COVID19 should not be used to clamp down on fundamental freedoms, including freedom of expression & right to peaceful assembly. We remind #Zimbabwe that any lockdown measures &… Read more »
Authoritarian Survival: Iran’s ‘Republic of Repression’
#Iran must release human rights defender #NargesMohammadi, reportedly ill with #coronavirus symptoms, and other arbitrarily detained individuals before it is too late – UN experts. Ms. Mohammadi should not be… Read more »
Iran: How to halt deterioration of human rights
“No to Gaza, no to Lebanon, my life only for #Iran.” Anti Islamic Republic protests in Behbahan, #Iran. https://t.co/1y6M3sOzub — Alireza Nader علیرضا نادر (@AlirezaNader) July 16, 2020 Iran… Read more »
Erdogan ‘tightening the vice’ on what’s left of Turkey’s pluralism
A dominant narrative that has come out of Turkey in recent years highlights how President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has consolidated control over the news media, according to analysts Andrew O’Donohue, Max… Read more »
Out of the frying pan into the fire: Is COVID a MENA ‘conflict multiplier’?
Anti-government protests were a growing feature of life in the Middle East and North Africa before the arrival of Covid-19. The pandemic brought an abrupt halt to months of civil… Read more »
The twilight of the Iranian revolution?
Isolated and dysfunctional, Iran’s Islamic Republic had reached a dead end. “The regime has lost all popular support, and yet it is incapable of change,” a leading dissident tells the… Read more »
Release Saudi women’s rights advocates on 2nd anniversary of arrests, say NGOs
Today marks two years since Loujain al-Hathloul (below), a prominent human rights activist in Saudi Arabia, was arrested and detained for trying to “destabilize the kingdom” with her fight… Read more »
Yet another regime using Covid pandemic to tighten its grip
Egypt’s military-backed government is using the coronavirus pandemic to tighten its grip on the country, human rights activists say. In recent weeks, authorities have ordered up punishments, including prison terms,… Read more »
Cut military aid to Egypt’s ‘authoritarian regime’, says new report
Egypt’s public prosecutor has said a young film-maker who died in prison had mistakenly drunk hand sanitiser in his cell, thinking it was water. Shady Habash died inside Cairo’s Tora prison complex on… Read more »