Autocrats’ bag of tricks for staying in power
Excluding hereditary monarchies, there are close to 40 countries around the world in which the national leader has been in power for 10 or more years, writes Freedom House analyst… Read more »
Category: Middle East/North Africa
Khomeini poll exclusion, consultant’s jailing send chilling message from Iran’s hardliners
After months of political maneuvering, the scion of the powerful Khomeini family and the projected figurehead of Iran’s ailing reform movement was definitively barred Wednesday from participating in parliamentary elections… Read more »
Qozhayya Chehwan seized from home by Syrian intel
I was born in December 1951, in northern Lebanon. I lived in the town of Batroun, raising a family of four children with my wife, and leading a quiet, peaceful… Read more »
Rule of Law in Areas of Limited Statehood
The Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus regions are increasingly characterized by Areas of Limited Statehood (ALS): ALS are territories where governments lack the ability or will to implement… Read more »
Baransu case prompts Turkey to lift media bans?
In a move that confirmed the growing restrictions and pressure on the Turkish media, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş has said his government is ready to remove bans that… Read more »
Thousands demand inquiry into Cairo death of labor researcher Regeni
More than 4,600 academics from across the globe have signed an open letter protesting against the death of Giulio Regeni, a Cambridge PhD student from Italy whose body was found… Read more »
Aleppo: the Sarajevo – and Munich – of Syria?
Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, now virtually encircled by the Syrian Army, may prove to be the Sarajevo of Syria. It is already the Munich, Roger Cohen writes for The… Read more »
Pragmatic Engagement Amidst Global Uncertainty: How to Advance Democracy
The outcomes of American interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya during the last fifteen years suggest that in many countries the active promotion of American values, democracy, and human rights… Read more »
Turkey’s Erdogan getting off democracy train?
Under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (A.K.P.) presented itself as a Western, reformist, neo-liberal and secular party, and, as late as 2012, 16 EU… Read more »
Saudis facing similar problems to collapsing Soviet Union
Saudi Arabia has ordered the segregation of men and women in local council meetings, in a setback to women’s rights in the ultraconservative kingdom, The Wall Street Journal reports. The… Read more »