4 ChangeRequired Reading: Noura Erakat on Palestine and Law
Friday, July 19, 2019
Richard Falk. Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. By Noura Erakat. Stanford University Press, 2019. I make no claim to approach this book with an…
Are human rights history?
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Stefan-Ludwig Hoffman Not so long ago, human rights were seen as a way out of the crises of a divided world. From the late 1970s, almost all political…
Turkish doctors imprisoned for stating: War is a global threat to public health
Friday, June 21, 2019
We condemn unequivocally the sentencing to prison of Turkish doctors promoting peace. A 2000 World Health Organization working paper begins with two simple declarations: “The first principle of…
Syria: Donor Conditionality, Sanctions, and the Question of Justice
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Omar Dahi. The question of donor conditionality and how it could be used to influence behavior and promote respect for human rights and political inclusion has increasingly gained…
Women and the War in Yemen: Actors or Victims?
Sunday, May 5, 2019
In most conflicts, women are grouped with children; they are categorized among the most vulnerable groups. This designation erases, in many cases, women who are engaged in the…
Adonis, The Man Who Remade Arabic Poetry
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Robyn Creswell. In March, 2011, when civil protests broke out in cities and towns across Syria, the country’s most famous poet, Adonis—who is in his eighties and has…
Trump’s America, Netanyahu’s Israel
Sunday, April 21, 2019
Adam Shatz. Israel’s legislative elections on 9 April were a tribute to Binyamin Netanyahu’s transformation of the political landscape. At no point were they discussed in terms of…
The Iran Floods and US Sanctions: 10 Million at Risk, But Does Anyone Care?
Friday, April 19, 2019
Jan Oberg. You have certainly not heard much about this in the West. And it didn’t get a fraction of the media attention (and none of the hundreds of millions…
Noam Chomsky: Confronting Ultranationalist, Reactionary Movements Across the Globe
Sunday, April 14, 2019
On Thursday night, hundreds of people packed into the Old South Church in Boston to hear the world-renowned dissident and linguist Noam Chomsky speak. He looked back at…
How Turkey’s local elections became ‘matter of national survival’
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Orhan Kemal Cengiz. On March 31, Turkey will elect mayors for 81 provincial capitals and 957 towns. Under normal conditions in Turkey, local elections are considered to be of…
Hunger striking for peace in Turkey
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Dougie Gerrard. By any measure, Leyla Güven is in a bad way. She is assailed by painful cramps, the result of a protein breakdown in her muscular tissue….
Iran: Women’s right and the class struggle
Friday, March 8, 2019
Yassamine Mather. Friday March 8 is International Women’s Day, which this year coincides with the 40th anniversary of the first major protest by Iranian women against the Islamic…
Is Israel’s tax grab a prelude to further hollowing out the PA?
Thursday, February 28, 2019
Jonathan Cook. Israel’s decision to withhold part of the taxes it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and plunge it deeper into crisis starkly illustrates the hypocrisies…
Iran’s ecologists imprisoned as water shortage threatens the country
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Maya Margit. Amid worsening diplomatic and economic isolation, Iran is continuing its crackdown on perceived dissidents. Among the targets: environmental scientists. A recent Amnesty International report claimed the…
Turkish Leader’s Election Woes
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Conn Hallinen. “Democracy is like a tram; you get off when you have reached your destination.” The comment by Recep Tayyip Erdogan—made more than 20 years ago when…
The Me Too Movement in the Middle East
Thursday, February 14, 2019
by Lara al-Kateb and Omar Abbas with contributions from Selin Cagatay, Frieda Afary, Fatemeh Masjedi and socialist feminists inside Iran The Me Too movement against sexual assault and…
Poems: Lanat Abad / The Place of the Damned & [Persian Letters]
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Two poems by Solmaz Sharif Lanat Abad / The Place of the Damned By Solmaz Sharif this mangy plot where by nowonly mothers still come, only mothers guard…
Egypt: a horror story
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Maged Mandour. Scene One President Abdelfattah Al Sissi, Egypt`s military autocrat is having an interview with the American television program 60 minutes, on CBS. Unlike other interviews, with…
Defying War and Defining Peace in Afghanistan
Friday, February 1, 2019
Kathy Kelly. On January 27th, 2019, the Taliban and the U.S. government each publicly stated acceptance, in principle, of a draft framework for ongoing negotiations that could culminate…
Chile’s feminists inspire a new era of social struggle
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Bree Busk. It is May 2018 and as winter descends on Santiago, Chile, a new wave of feminist activity is exploding into life. Anti-patriarchal graffiti covers the city…
Iran’s looming Instagram ban shows hardliner disconnect
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Kourosh Ziabari. Instagram, widely used in Iran among small business owners, students, influencers and even senior officials, is the latest social media application to come under scrutiny and…
The Moral Travesty of Israel Seeking Arab, Iranian Money for its Alleged Nakba
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Ramzy Baroud. The game is afoot. Israel, believe it or not, is demanding that seven Arab countries and Iran pay $250 billion as compensation for what it claims was the…
Iran: workers’ strikes and State Department crocodile tears
Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Yassamine Mather. Iranian workers have been staging large protests since early November in two major industrial complexes: the Haft Tapeh sugar plant and the Foulad steel factory in…
5.5 Million Women Build Their Wall in Kerala
Monday, January 14, 2019
Vijay Prashad. On Jan. 1, 5.5 million women in the Indian state of Kerala (population 35 million) built a 386-mile wall with their bodies. They stood from one end…
What does democracy look like?
Friday, January 11, 2019
James Miler. “This is what democracy looks like!”—for some of us protesting Trump in New York on January 21, 2017, this was a familiar chant. We’d heard it…
Tehran’s little secret: Cafe where disability is no barrier to talent – and serving tea
Thursday, January 10, 2019
Sahar Esfandiari. TAs Mehdi Khakyan’s hands move skilfully across the piano keys, the soft chatter in the room subsides to hone in on the melody of a well-loved…
Inside Mother Camp: the woman tackling Afghanistan’s drug problem
Monday, January 7, 2019
Rushi Kumar. Laila Haidari is considered a criminal, despite never committing a crime. The 40-year-old works with drug addicts in Kabul. “The addicts I work with are considered…
Is There a Plot to Depopulate Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon?
Sunday, December 23, 2018
Ramzy Baroud. An eerie video composed of a recorded audio prayer and a photo of one ‘Hajj Jamal Ghalaini’ occasionally pops up on Facebook. The voice is that…
Books on Middle East 2018 – tales of repression, ruse and resistance
Thursday, November 29, 2018
Into the Hands of the Soldiers: Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and the Middle East. David Kirkpatrick, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018. From 2011 to 2015, David Kirkpatrick was the…
Saudi Arabia: Reports of torture and sexual harassment of detained activists
Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Amnesty International. Several Saudi Arabian activists, including a number of women, who have been arbitrarily detained without charge since May 2018 in Saudi Arabia’s Dhahban Prison, have reportedly…