Arab World

By Rima Sghaier | – ( Global Voices ) – As the Tunisian parliament considers a controversial police protection bill, protests erupted in the city of Bardo to oppose it. On October 6 and 8, human rights groups and a youth-led citizen movement dubbed Hasebhom (translated as “hold them to account”) rallied outside the parliament […]

censorship

Khashoggi’s Ghost: World Resoundingly rejects Saudi membership on UN Human Rights Council

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sulayman Hajj Ibrahim writes in the London pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-`Arabi [Arab Jerusalem] that Saudi Arabia’s bid to join the 47-member Human Rights Council of the United Nations was rejected resoundingly by the General Assembly. Human Rights Watch waged a campaign against allowing China and Saudi Arabia onto the council. […]

Saudi Arabia

Saudis now Boycott, Oppose Turkey, but once Sought its Security Umbrella: Clinton Files

Middle East Monitor

By Daud Abdullah | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – This is one of the uncomfortable questions raised by the newly declassified Clinton files. A diplomatic dispatch to the former Secretary of State dated 12 October 2011 revealed that the Saudis actually considered Turkey to be a possible security guarantor after the discovery of […]

Bashar al-Assad

Syria’s security services flourish while people starve; what sort of ‘president’ is Assad?

Juan Cole

Ghazi Dahman | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – It is no surprise that the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre has released documents revealing that Syrian Embassies around the world spy on their own citizens on behalf of the Assad regime. Every Syrian who has travelled abroad for any reason knows that the regime’s […]

Israel/ Palestine

Palestinian Refugees expelled by Israel to Lebanon are caught in its Multilayered Crisis

Al-Shabaka

By Jaber Suleiman | – (Al-Shabaka) – The disastrous explosion that struck Beirut’s port on August 4, 2020, greatly exacerbated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which followed on the heels of the severe financial crisis that had led to massive popular protests in late 2019. The Lebanese economy is now in almost total collapse […]

Saudi Arabia

The Catastrophic Saudi War in Yemen heads for more Disasters, for Yemenis

Middle East Monitor

By Yaseen Tamimi | – ( Middle East Monitor) – The commander of the Southern Transitional Council in Yemen, Aidarus Al-Zoubaidi, appeared last month in the guise of a full-fledged president, surrounded by Saudi Arabian guards, meeting figures who are said to be separatist southerners and raising the separatist flag alongside the Saudi flag. All […]

Human Rights

Saudi Arabia continues to conceal its human rights abuses

Middle East Monitor

By Tasnim Nazeer ( Middle East Monitor ) – Two years since the brutal death of respected journalist Jamal Khashoggi, why has Saudi Arabia still not been held to account? Khashoggi, a veteran journalist from Saudi Arabia, was last seen entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, where he was due to obtain […]

censorship

Saudi Arabia: ‘Image Laundering’ Conceals Abuses

Human Rights Watch

(Human Rights Watch) – (Beirut) – The Saudi government has spent billions of dollars hosting major entertainment, cultural, and sporting events as a deliberate strategy to deflect from the country’s image as a pervasive human rights violator, Human Rights Watch said today. On October 2, 2020, Human Rights Watch launched a global campaign to counter […]

Arab World

Revolutionary Guards Commander Gives Rare Estimate Of Money Iran Spent On Proxies, Military Aid In Region

Golnaz Esfandiari

( RFE/RL) – Iran has spent nearly $20 billion pushing its controversial foreign policy objectives in the region, the deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said in an interview on state television. Speaking to state TV channel Ofogh on September 26, Ali Fadavi said Iran had spent $19.6 billion on the 1980-1988 […]