Blog archive all
7th October 2010
Violence, unfortunately, is part of the daily scene in Yemen and most attacks go unreported beyond the local press. When westerners are the target, though, there's more interest – as we saw yesterday.
A vehicle carrying five British embassy staff, including the deputy ambassador, came under attack… Read more
6th October 2010
"Web tastes freedom inside Syria, and it's bitter" – that was the headline on a recent article by New York Times journalist Robert Worth. It tells the story of a video posted on Facebook which showed Syrian teachers beating their students, and goes on to talk about the restrictions on journalists… Read more
5th October 2010
A small story of life in Egypt, from the Rebel With A Cause blog:
A young boy, Kareem (16 years old), was walking by in downtown area, Cairo. He was followed by four guys who were shouting insults to the young boy calling him a faggot. The boy just ignored their insults and kept going, the thing… Read more
5th October 2010
A report from Human Rights Watch last week noted some modest but positive developments in Saudi Arabia during the five years of rule by King Abdullah.
"Today, Saudis are freer than they were five years ago," it said. "Saudi women are less subject to rigid sex segregation in public places,… Read more
3rd October 2010
Another Moroccan magazine bites the dust. Following the closureof Le Journal Hebdomadaire earlier this year – driven out of business by an advertisers' boycott and crippling libel fines – the publishers of Nichane (the first weekly magazine in colloquial Arabic) have announced that it, too, is to… Read more
3rd October 2010
There are many in Saudi Arabia who still hanker after the days when the government could control almost everything that people said or heard.
Last month came the announcement that bloggers would have to register with the authorities – which in the face of uproar from the blogosphere was … Read more
3rd October 2010
Even the most unlikely Arab countries hold book fairs nowadays, many of them with the cachet "International" attached to their title. They are generally promoted as a sign of modernity, progress and cultural development – though I still find it hard to take most of them seriously. Far too often… Read more
29th September 2010
The Committee to Protect Journalists has today released a damning report on the Yemeni government's efforts to restrict press freedom. It looks in some detail at the legislative and administrative measures as well as extra-judicial violence against journalists.
In particular, it calls for the… Read more
29th September 2010
Hisham Talaat Moustafa, the Egyptian billionaire and prominent member of the ruling party who paid a hitman $2 million to kill Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim, has finally escaped the gallows.
Last year Moustafa was sentenced to death for the crime, along with the hitman, a former Egyptian police… Read more
29th September 2010
New research suggests closing down extremist Islamic websites is no substitute for directly challenging their religious ideology. (Read more at Comment Is Free.)
ARAB ART ONLINE: Susan Hefuna: Al Sabr Gamil (Patience is Beautiful) 2007. Ink stained on wood 140 x 170 cm. More information | Click to enlarge
