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The Philippines consulate in Jeddah has taken up the case of three housemaids who say they have not been paid for five months and complain of abuse by the Syrian wife of their Palestinian sponsor.
One of the women says the wife beat her, and another than the wife threatened to scald her… Read more
The Gay Middle East website (GME) has published a reportsummarising the situation for gay people in Syria –a country which is rarely discussed in this connection.
Although "carnal relations against the order of nature" are still punishable by up to three years in jail, GME detects some… Read more
Fourteen partygoers – 11 your men and four young women – have been sentenced to jail and flogging in Saudi Arabia for gender mixing, Arab News reports.
The paper quotes a source as saying: "All arrangements had been completed for the party and they had brought liquor. But the intervention of… Read more
Predictably, the Egyptian authorities are getting in a twist over their discriminatory new personal status law for non-Muslims (or possibly just Christians).
Separate laws for members of different religions are an inherently bad idea but, since President Mubarak wants this one to be ready within… Read more
Five people were killed, including three soldiers, and 11 people injured during clashes in Yemen's Amran province "between militants and military personnel", Shawa.Net reports.
Shooting is said to have broken out when the "militants" set up road blocks in protest at non-payment of "allowances… Read more
Faris Mana'a, Yemen's top arms trafficker, was released from jail last week, according to tribal sources. The Sahwa.Net websitedescribes his release as "astonishing" and says his return home was welcomed by "masses" of sheikhs and citizens in Saada province.
Mana'a served for some time as head… Read more
Police in Karbala last week raided a "safe house" used by gay, lesbian and transgender Iraqis, and took away the occupants.
The house (pictured above, after the raid) was one of several established by the UK-based Iraqi LGBT organisation to protect them against … Read more
Tunisia's parliament has approved a law which will criminalise human rights activists and others who make contact with "foreign organisations" with the aim of harming the country's "vital interests and its economic security". Offenders face up to five years' jail in peacetime or 12 years… Read more
Earlier this month I noted an important decision by Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court which, basically, over-ruled the Coptic church on the question of allowing divorced Christians to remarry.
The Coptic leader, Pope Shenouda III, rejected the court's decision – setting the scene for a… Read more
The US Social Forum brings together organisations from across the United States with the aim of working for social justice. This year's forum, which opens next week in Detroit, includes a workshop on "LGBTQI Liberation in the Middle East". According to the blurb:
The purpose of… Read more
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
