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A Saudi couple who were forcibly divorced more than four years ago have finally had their marriage reinstated by the Supreme Court, in a decision which is being hailed as a triumphfor individual rights over archaic tribal attitudes.
The family of Fatima ‘Azzaz, now 36, initially gave… Read more
Coinciding with the London conference on Yemen, Saudi Arabia
announced that it had won its war with Yemen's Houthi rebels.
The fighting does appear to have stopped, at least for now, though it's not the first time the Saudis have claimed victory. In December, in a statement… Read more
There were a number of encouraging signs from yesterday's international meeting in London about Yemen. The first is that it didn't get too preoccupied with al-Qaida and recognised that the country faces "many urgent problems" (to put it mildly) which are inter-related and need to be tackled across… Read more
Not to be outdone by Egypt holding a public holiday to celebrate its police force, another regime with a grim human rights record is playing a joke on its citizens. In Tunisia, it's National Laughter Week.
Posted by Brian Whitaker, 27 January 2010.
Syria has launched a new initiative to "create more space for civil society to work", according to Rami Khouri in the Lebanese Daily Star.
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He discusses a… Read more
Reading the text of Hillary Clinton's speech on internet freedom, I coudn't help thinking back to the speech George Bush made in 2003, announcing his "forward strategy of freedom" in the Middle East. Each in its own way encapsulated some of the core philosophy of the two… Read more
Martin Scheinin, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, is due to begin a four-day fact-finding visit to Tunisia tomorrow.
Scheinin, a Finnish professor of international law, angered the Egyptian government last October with a highly critical report… Read more
News organisations in the Philippines are reporting that a woman who alleges she was raped has been jailed in Saudi Arabia and faces a probable flogging.
The 35-year-old Filipina went to Dammam last May to take up a job in a dental clinic. She says that three months after she started… Read more
On Wednesday the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a session about Yemen and the transcripts are now online.
Overall, I think the committee got a pretty good picture of the "Yemen problem" – a valuable antidote to some of the rubbish that is being churned out in the American… Read more
Writing in the London Review Blog, Hugh Miles discusses the mystery of Prince Bandar, the head of Saudi Arabia's National Security Council who previously spent 18 years as the kingdom's ambassador to Washington. According to Miles, the last official sighting of Prince Bandar was more… 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
