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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
“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 »
Just when the Gangnam Style craze began to fizzle, and we thought that the world would be spared another viral dance phenomenon, enter the Harlem Shake. It began as a 2012 heavy bass instrumental music track produced by Baauer, the stage name of American music producer Harry Rodrigues, uploaded to YouTube in August 2012. 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 »
A new report from the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) – Rethinking Economic Growth: Towards Productive and Inclusive Arab Societies – examines employment issues, the relative lack of dynamic private sectors, broken social contracts, and more in the Arab world. The chapter on education is particularly interesting. The report More »
With fresh anti-American sentiment growing in some parts of the Middle East and North Africa, Economist Intelligence Unit expert Robert Powell offers some thoughts on what President Barack Obama could do to counter the trend. Powell spoke with VOA’s Susan Yackee. Yackee: What does President Obama need to do to improve his image in the More »
Remember in May 2011 when U.S. President Barack Obama told the government of Bahrain “you can’t have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail?” The people of Bahrain do, but many doubted a real dialogue would be possible. Since President Obama’s call for talks, there has been no real political More »
A decade ago, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) shone a spotlight on the sorry state of education in the Arab world with its inaugural Arab Human Development Report in 2002, and its 2003 follow-on report, “Building a Knowledge Society.” The reports’ statistics still shock: in one year, Spain translates the same number of More »
The Arab Spring introduced us to the strength and determination of the many Arab women who took to the streets and the Internet to call for change in their governments and societies. Gone were the stereotypes of oppression and passivity. In their place were voices and faces of hope, courage and indomitable spirit, calling More »
The past week marked the second anniversary of the resignation of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, an event that in many ways turned unrest in Tunisia from a purely national affair to what the media dubbed the Arab Spring. That Arab Spring was seen as a broad rising of the Arab masses against aging More »
Washington’s relations with Bahrain are under strain after royal comments at a regional strategy conference in the island’s capital. The incident, described by the Associated Press as a “diplomatic flap” and a “public slap against Washington,” reopens the debate about the progress of reforms as street violence continues between Shi’ite protesters and security forces More »
Outside of Bahrain government supporters, it’s hard to find anyone who thinks the country’s reform process is going okay. To mark last week’s anniversary of the publication of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), the report ordered by the King of Bahrain into human rights violations in early 2011, the regime evaluated its own More »
It is a curb on freedom of expression to temporarily refuse to grant licenses for public demonstrations. However, freedom of expression in an absolute sense is also curbed when a magazine refuses to publish cartoons highly offensive to millions of Muslims; or when a prominent Holocaust-denier and anti-Semite who incites hatred is banned from More »
With President Barack Obama’s re-election, many people across the Middle East are contemplating what this region might expect from his second term. Over the next four years, Obama will likely continue the policy directions set in his first term: by completing the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, for example, and reaching out to global players like More »
The week began with the collapse of the cease-fire in Syria and many more reported deaths. The U.S. calls for stronger leadership in the Syrian opposition. With the docking of Iranian military ships in Sudan, analysts scrutinize their relationship. Despite new laws banning demonstrations, protestors take to the streets of Bahrain. A series of More »
Tension has increased again in the Persian Gulf island kingdom of Bahrain, the home of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, after one policeman was killed and a second seriously injured by a homemade bomb during a clash with Shi’ite demonstrators in a village outside the capital, Manama. These latest casualties in Bahrain, in the troubles that More »
On October 1st, 2012, women organizers launched a Facebook page, “The Uprising of Women in the Arab World,” to highlight the discrimination against them which they don’t feel comfortable – or safe – enough to protest in the streets. In just ten days, the page has generated nearly 35,000 “likes” and conversation among more More »
