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Britain slams Iran 'intimidation' over culture centre closure
By: Iran Focus, February 5, 2009
Britain accused Iran of intimidating its staff after closing its main cultural centre in Tehran, in the latest flare-up of between the two countries. The British embassy in Tehran on Thursday expressed regret over the move, which added to tensions already strained over Iran's nuclear programme. But the British Council said it had "no choice" but to act after Iranian authorities summoned most of its 16 local staff for "interviews" in December and "suggested to them that they should resign from their posts".
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Bahrain: Increasing restrictions on the activities of human rights defenders
By: Human Rights Today, February 4, 2009
Human rights defenders in Bahrain are facing increasing restrictions on their activities. The authorities have sought to target independent human rights organisations including the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights and restrict human rights activities. Human Rights defenders have been subjected to arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment, fabricated judicial proceedings, threats and harassment.
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Egypt: More than talk?
By: Riazat Butt, The Guardian, Februrary 4, 2009
I was alarmed to read somewhere that there would be more updates from Alexandria. Unlike previous Anglican shindigs where there have been an embarassment of riches, this meeting has offered little in the way of hard news. Why are the primates - who normally leak like sieves - so silent? Could it be out of respect for Rowan? Have they learned that loose lips sink ships? Good God. Yesterday the primates came up with a useful course of action - a bundle of initiatives to tackle Robert Mugabe's despotic regime.
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Workers plan to isolate Israel
By: Matthew Savides, IOL, February 4, 2009
Stevedores have refused to offload an Israeli ship scheduled to dock at Durban Harbour on Sunday morning because of that country's recent offensive against Gaza, Palestine. The South African Transport and Allied Workers' Union-affiliated workers, backed by umbrella union federation Cosatu, say their action is part of a campaign across the country for boycotts, disinvestment and sanctions against Israel.
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Imprisonment of Iranian rights activist raises alarm
By: One World, February 4, 2009
Last week's incarceration of an Iranian women's rights defender sentenced to prison for engaging in a peaceful protest may signal the Iranian government's intent to implement all sentences against women's rights activists, warns a group of international women's rights organizations.
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Iran: Human Rights in the spotlight on the 30th Anniversary of the Islamic Revolution
By: Amnesty International, February 4, 2009
10 February 2009 marks the 30 year anniversary of the change in government in Iran that led to the creation of the Islamic Republic. Amnesty International is marking the date by raising its concerns over a range of human rights violations that have persisted over the past 30 years.
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Iranian expat student imprisoned in Tehran
By: RFE, February 4, 2009
A former member of Iran's largest reformist student group, the Office To Foster Unity, has been detained in Tehran. RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports that Said Razavi Faghih was arrested on February 2, several days after returning from France, where he attends university.
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Iran: After the dawn
By: Nasrin Alavi, Open Democracy, February 2, 2009
The shape of the contest between those who emphasise the need for a free society, an open market, social justice or "more of the same" is yet to become clear. But the lives of millions of Iranians - the young doctor Zahra Bani Yaghoub, the TV presenter Adel Ferdosipour, students such as Shadi, and clerics such as Abdollah Nouri - reflect different forms of resistance that will sooner or later irrevocably take Iranian society beyond the revolutionary era.
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Iran: Islamic Republic proves durable, but is it successful?
By: Charles Recknagel, RFE, February 2, 2009
Thirty years after the Islamic Revolution, the world is still trying to understand just what it was -- and is. Was it an anti-Western revolution against the rule of the U.S.-backed shah, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi? Was it the first modern effort to establish a Muslim theocracy? Or was it a simple takeover of a state by a single party? Finding the answer would help explain why the Islamic Revolution -- now in its second generation -- remains resolutely anti-Western, entirely in the hands of its clerical leaders, and intolerant of dissent.
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Iraq voted. Did democracy win?
By: NY Times, February 2, 2009
LAST Saturday, as millions of Iraqis dipped their fingers in little vials of purple ink after they cast their votes, I was in Baghdad sending messages about the events of the day to Twitter, the micro-blogging platform. An hour before the polls closed I received a message from a friend in America, John, who was wondering if the Obama administration was helping or hurting the elections in Iraq.
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Egyptian bloggers and journalists in the hot seat
By: Marwa Rakha, Global Voices, February 2, 2009
Egyptian blogger, Zeinobia wrote a series of posts about bloggers and journalists who are either behind bars, sued, or fined. In her post, Another Blogger Detained, Zeinobia wrote: "Ok this is the sort of news no one wants to hear before the Eid "feast". Another Egyptian blogger is being detained. Famous blogger and Citizen Journalist Ahmed Abdel Fatah of Yalally blog has been detained today from 3 hours ago and taken to the Dokki Station. He has been taken during a Pro-Gaza caravan arranged by MB [Muslim Brotherhood]."
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Bekah Wolf of the Palestine Solidarity Project on home occupations
By: WRMEA, February 2009
The New York University campus group NYU Students For Justice In Palestine sponsored a Nov. 12 discussion following a film screening of "Private," a story of Israeli soldiers imprisoning a Palestinian family in their home on the West Bank. Their speaker of the evening, Bekah Wolf, of the Palestine Solidarity Project in Beit Ommer, spoke of her first-hand experience with the practice known as home occupation.
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Ordinary people - Nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestine
By: Eblogger, February 2009
"Ordinary People" is something of an intentional misnomer. I live and work with Palestinians practicing nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation. They are doing things that are hardly "ordinary": committing themselves to active nonviolence and to loving their enemies -- following the commands of One who was anything but ordinary. And yet, the Palestinians with whom I work are also very ordinary -- they are not some kind of spiritual superheroes/superheroines who do things most folks can't do.
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Egypt: Overturning of jail sentences against editors welcome but concerns remain
By: Amnesty International, January 31, 2009
The Egyptian authorities must stop prosecuting independent journalists for their writings, Amnesty International said as it welcomed the decision by a Cairo Appeals Court today to overturn the one year prison sentence handed out to four newspaper editors for publishing offences. The organization believes the case against the editors to be part of a concerted campaign by the authorities to stifle criticism.
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To fight radicalism, empower Muslim women
By: Irshad Manji, Newsweek, December 31, 2008
Instead of being driven strictly by counterterrorism, the United States' approach to Muslims should be complemented by a universal human-rights thrust-a cooperative strategy that recognizes ordinary Muslims, especially women, to be immediate targets of jihadism, as well as indispensable partners in the fight against it.
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