Today marks two years since Loujain al-Hathloul (below), a prominent human rights activist in Saudi Arabia, was arrested and detained for trying to “destabilize the kingdom” with her fight… Read more »
Ten or even 20 years ago, the protests unfolding in Lebanon would have led news bulletins around the world—what is more compelling than large portions of the population of this… Read more »
The slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi “has become the symbol of our collective moral conscience, the voice for the voiceless in the Middle East,” his fiancée Hatice Cengiz wrote in… Read more »
Why do some countries develop democracy and liberty while others fall prey to authoritarian rule or anarchy? If it is the case that “everywhere people are interested in liberty” what… Read more »
The social history of the MENA region is a history of social mobilization and the emergence of civil society. Across the Arab world, ordinary citizens have collectively engaged in resistance,… Read more »
The Trump administration has ordered the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development to freeze much of the remaining money for foreign aid this year, in a… Read more »
Russia and China are not the only autocracies seeking to squash democratic openings. Since the Arab uprisings of 2011, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have used their considerable… Read more »
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has arrived in Khartoum this morning for talks with the head of Sudan’s ruling military council. The Sudanese Professionals Association, which has led pro-democracy protests, yesterday… Read more »
Iranian regional advances have opened up a path, both literally and figuratively, for Iran to circumvent U.S. sanctions by interweaving its terror militias deep within the governments and societies of… Read more »
Before his death, the late Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was trying to set up several organizations to promote the cause of democracy in the region — particularly one that aimed, among… Read more »