Bahrain has a funny definition of free speech. After jailing human rights activists and social media users critical of the government and even going as far as banning protests, the country’s government still insists that it protects its citizens’...
Bahrain has banned all demonstrations following clashes between police and anti-government protestors on Monday (29 October). Interior minister Sheikh Rashid Al Khalifah said that the clampdown was a result of the "repeated abuses" of freedom of...
British politcians’ fear of upsetting “allies” has meant oppression in the tiny gulf nation is ignored, says Rohan Jayasekera
The Bahrain Interior Ministry announced the arrest of four people for defaming public figures on social media today (17 October), with authorities still searching for a fifth. The Acting General Director of Anti-Corruption, Electronic and Economic...
Saudi Arabia has said it is "insulted" by the announcement of a UK Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry into the UK's relationship with the Gulf states, in particular Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. In a veiled threat to key trade deals, the...
It's been nearly two years since the mass uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, but Egypt's film makers are still plagued by censorship they say is stifling their creativity. Religion and sex remain high on the censors' list of "taboo...
In Tunisia, politicians and the people are abandoning freedom of expression. In a conservative society, Islamists’ obsession with blasphemy and the opposition’s passivity in defying an illiberal constitutional clause are placing free speech and...
An Iranian court on Sunday convicted the Tehran bureau chief of the Thomson Reuters news agency of "propaganda-related offences" for a video that briefly described a group of women involved in martial arts training as killers. Parisa Hafezi was...
Bahraini police arrested five medics in a set of dawn raids this morning, one day after the nation's highest court upheld their prison sentences in a case international rights groups have condemned as politically motivated. Doctor Ali al-Ekry,...
The women of Egypt played a huge role in the uprising that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak. They were on the frontlines, standing shoulder to shoulder with men in Cairo's Tahrir Square, demanding "Bread, Freedom and Social Justice." Their...