POMED & Atlantic Council Call for Increased Yemen Support
The Yemen Policy Initiative - a joint effort of POMED and the Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council - released a statement yesterday calling for the international community to focus on Yemen's political transition and humanitarian crisis ahead of an important donors meeting next week. The statement applauded Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi's recent slate of reforms, including military restructuring and progress on the inclusive National Dialogue program, but ...
Bahraini Government Suspected of Spying on Dissidents
A report was published on July 25 investigating Bahrain's use of criminal surveillance software to spy on protesters and suspected dissidents. Morgan Marquis-Boire and Bill Marczak, two computer engineers, undertook the project in an effort to shed light on ...
UN Chief Lays Responsibility With Syrian Regime
Syrian rebels began a major operation in Aleppo Friday aiming to strike security compounds and bases of regime forces. According to Bassem Mroue of the Associated Press, "It would be evidence that weeks of intense bombardments by the Syrian ...
Yemen Announces Formation of New Election Committee
On August 30, Yemeni Minister of Legal Affairs Mohamed Mikhlafi announced the creation of an new election committee ahead of a round of elections which are slated to take place within the next two months. "The coming period ...
Chatham House: Kuwait’s Parliament, An Experiment in Semi-Democracy
Chatham House released a briefing paper by Jane Kinninmont entitled "Kuwait's Parliament: An Experiment in Semi-Democracy" which discusses the role of the elected body within the confines of the Kuwaiti monarchical structure. The report covers the tenuous relationship between Kuwait's elected ministers and the royally appointed cabinet. In addition, Kinninmont analyzes the powers of parliament, the perception of democracy as a hindrance to economic development, and suggests improvements to the parliamentary ...
U.N. Chief Criticizes Iran Human Rights Abuses
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon took to the podium in Tehran yesterday to raise "serious concerns on the human-rights abuses and violations in this country." Seated next to a delegation from Iran that included Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, the U.N. ...
August 30, 2012
Category: Diplomacy, Featured, Human Rights, Iran, United Nations, US foreign policy
Tunisian Journalists Plan Protest of Media Censorship
Staff of Tunisian newspapers Le Temps and Essabah, accused controversial new director Lotfi Touati of censorship Thursday after the removal of two articles criticizing his appointment in the two state-owned newspapers. Touati, who was appointed by the new Islamist-led government, has been accused of ...
Egyptian President Morsi Condemns “Oppressive” Syrian Regime
At the August 29 meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi called on its members to support the Syrian rebels in their uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime. "Our solidarity with the struggle of ...
New York Times: Staying Power of Arab Monarchies
In the New York Times latest "Room for Debate," experts discussed what accounts for the ability of Arab monarchies to weather the turmoil that overturned authoritarian regimes elsewhere in the region. Christopher Davidson argued that the survival of the Gulf monarchies, at least, is a function of the social contract between the regime and the population. In these states, the regime as the mechanism to distribute wealth to citizens " has provided their ...
Tunisians Continue to Push for Government Reform
Youth groups in Tunisia continue to organize protests aimed at criticizing government performance and a lack of adherence to principles of the revolution. Sawty, a democracy promotion group, passed out blank pamphlets labeled "Tunisian constitution" on August 11 to call ...
Carnegie Report: Morocco, Can the Third Way Succeed?
The Carnegie Endowment published a report by Marina Ottaway entitled "Morocco: Can the Third Way Succeed?" discussing the current state of reform in the kingdom after last year's political changes. Ottaway finds that the "third way" between stagnant authoritarianism and the "messy path toward popular sovereignty" has not yet been realized in Morocco, but cautions that it is still early and will likely take years to determine the success of incremental reforms. The ...
Yemen: Hundreds Report Extrajudicial Arrests
Yemen's national organization for defending rights and freedoms, HOOD, reported "about 207 complaints of detentions beyond the legal limits and recorded 163 extrajudicial arrests including 93 by the security authorities, mostly in the capital Sanaa, 37 by military units ...
U.N. Rapporteurs Call for Rights Compliance in Bahrain
Last week, several U.N. human rights rapporteurs calledon the Bahraini government to "comply with the rights to peaceful assembly and expression and immediately release those arbitrarily detained for exercising their legitimate freedoms." Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders Margaret ...
August 29, 2012
Category: Bahrain, Featured, Freedom, Political transition, Protests, Reform, Sectarianism, United Nations, US foreign policy
Jordanian Websites Plan Blackout in Protest of Laws
On August 29, numerous Jordanian websites and blogs will go offline to "protest the proposed amendments to the press and publication law, approved by cabinet and presented to parliament for discussion in its extraordinary session this week." The ...
Iraqi Minister Resigns Position over PM Meddling
Mohamed Allawi, Iraq's communications minister, resigned on August 27 citing increased interference in the ministry from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. "I present my resignation because I have become incapable of working in such an infested environment," Allawi wrote ...
August 28, 2012
Category: Democracy Promotion, Featured, Human Rights, Iraq, Reform, US foreign policy
Thousands in Kuwait Protest Controversial Election Law
Supporting media reports from Kuwait indicate that as many as 10,000 people rallied Monday in protest of possible amendments to the controversial proposed election law, and calling for the dissolution of the recently reinstated 2009 parliament. However, others put ...
State Department Supports Egyptian IMF Loan Request
At a press briefing on August 23, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland confirmed U.S. support for Egypt's $4.8 billion loan request to the IMF. She outlined Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's commitment to a three-stage process which would allow ...
Iranian Activists Urge U.N. on Political Prisoners
Ahead of the Non-Aligned Movement conference in Tehran, more than 400 Iranian political and social activists have written a letter to the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to urge him to visit Iranian opposition leaders Mir Hossein ...
