The celebration of Coptic Easter this week sheds light on a significant political problem awaiting Egypt. While Coptic Christians are in the midst of celebrating a major holiday, prominent Islamists are debating whether or not it is a sin to greet Copts on their holiday. This is a far cry from the Egyptian tradition More »

Bahrain’s government seems determined to sabotage its own image.  It complains that it’s misunderstood and unfairly criticized, but then continues to make decisions that baffle or enrage its international allies. Foreign criticism of Bahrain’s poor human rights record is increasing. Earlier this week, the U.S. Commission of International Religious Freedom cited “increased rhetoric from official More »

Syrian American Shiyam Galyon lives in Houston, Texas. She recently traveled to Syria as part of a humanitarian relief project distributing food and medical supplies in rebel-controlled Aleppo and its suburbs. Galyon is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where she had been active in several campaigns to help the needy. More »

Sami of Qusayr, by his own account an English lecturer, gave up teaching at his university to support Syria’s revolution. When government forces began to vacate local schools they had seized he agreed to resume teaching, not to university students but to 11th-graders. Read his story below. Middle East Voices’ “Syria Witness” series features personal More »

This year’s Formula One race in Bahrain was again accompanied by extensive anti-government rallies around the capital, Manama. Although protesters were kept well away from the race itself, which is held at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, the violence that accompanied the protests, and the accompanying crackdown, highlighted the paucity of political progress More »

Egypt’s street children had a lot to gain from the country’s revolution. However, change has come slowly if at all, and in many ways, their cause has been pushed off course. Increasing poverty, a growing shadow economy, and continued political instability, have proven challenges to the safety of these children. The issue of street children More »

A great debate has been raging over whether the so-called Arab Spring has been good or bad for the women of the region. Some argue that the rise of Islamist governments in places like Egypt and Tunisia has led to a stark reversal of women’s rights. Others believe that the vibrant social and political More »

Egyptian civil society played a critical role in paving the way for the January 2011 revolution by challenging the former autocracy and educating citizens about their rights. After the revolution, Egyptian civil society, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs), trade unions, and voluntary youth activists, have acted as attentive watchdogs of the advancement of civil rights More »

Two years into the uprisings that rocked the Middle East, it has become common to see instability, uncertainty, and strife as the direct outcome of the Arab Spring. An Islamist threat against civil liberties appears to be strengthening. Protestors and vigilante groups commit violence amid the paralysis of police and internal security agencies. And More »

If a strong initiative is not undertaken rapidly by the Libyan government and its Western allies, the state of Libya risks implosion or a return to authoritarianism. The confluence of internal fragmentation, continued attacks against the central authorities in Tripoli, and ongoing human rights violations throughout the country is putting the very existence of More »

Life is getting increasingly difficult for Egyptians.  The New York Times ran a front page story on Sunday about what anybody who has been paying attention to Egypt already knows:  the country is running out of fuel, food, and cash.  The Egyptian Central Bank announced weeks ago that its reserves of foreign currency are down to critical More »

Saudi watchers have for years debated the stability of the kingdom. In the 1960s, with internecine rivalries dividing the royal family and the kingdom struggling to pay its debts, some American diplomats predicted that the House of Saud wouldn’t last but a few more years. When extremists took control of the Grand Mosque in More »

The assassination of a leading anti-Islamist politician, Chokri Belaid, at the start of February plunged Tunisia into its deepest political crisis since the revolution of January 2011. It crystallized widespread dissatisfaction with the failure of the interim government, led by the moderate Islamist party, Ennahda, to halt the rising tide of political violence and More »

“It is time for an uprising of women in the Arab world,” writes Hanin Ghaddar, managing editor of NOW News in Lebanon in the second annual publication to mark International Women’s Day by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Middle East Program. Last year, Haleh Esfandiari, the program’s director, asked a diverse group of women from business, More »

At least Tunisia is not as bad as Egypt – that is the hardly comforting good news coming out of the country where the Arab Spring began more than two years ago. The bad news is that Tunisia has come up far short of the lofty expectations set by Tunisians and outsiders in January More »

Sami, by his own account, is an activist-turned-school teacher who writes about changes that have taken place in his hometown of Qusayr since the uprising against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad began nearly two years ago. In the midst of the conflict that has destroyed much of Quasayr, Sami recently visited its newly-elected city council More »

I’ve been in hiding for the past two years. The Bahraini government imprisoned me from August 2010 to February 2011, and it was obvious I would be rearrested; so I went underground. It’s not easy – I’m married with a 10-year-old son, and the risk of capture is always there – but I carry More »

حوار مع الدكتور عبد الموجود درديري المتحدث باسم لجنة العلاقات الخارجية بحزب الحرية والعدالة تحديات وفرص تواجه العلاقات المصرية الأمريكية كيف يجب أن تكون العلاقات المصرية الأمريكية بعد الثورة المصرية هل ستحترم مصر اتفاقية كامب ديفيد مع إسرائيل ما هي الفرص السانحة لتحسين العلاقات المصرية الأمريكية هل سيستمر التعاون الاستراتيجي بين القاهرة More »

It’s been more than two years since the start of Egypt’s January 25 revolution, and the country is still teetering on the edge. Most recently, clashes occurred between demonstrators and police forces when tens of thousands across the country took to the streets to mark the uprising’s second anniversary. It feels like no sooner More »