"He told me to either leave or they would beat me very terribly." Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region has long had a reputation in the West as a bastion of stability in a chaotic region plagued…
"I face probably a life sentence or maybe even worse. The idea of not being able to go back to your own country...is just heartbreaking." [caption id="attachment_9348" align="alignleft" width="240"] Abdullah Elshamy[/caption] For a time, journalist Abdullah…
Egypt will hold a presidential election at the end of this month. But there’s little drama about who will actually win. President Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi, who led a 2013 coup against the country’s first democratically elected…
"I was in hiding in Bahrain for two years, in a small room inside a house" Few escapes are as dramatic as Ali Abdulemam’s. The celebrated liberal Bahraini blogger and newspaper columnist disappeared from public…
There is no one in Egypt that you would recognize and say, 'He is the face of the LGBT movement.' The life of a gay man in Egypt isn't easy. Though same-sex intercourse isn't technically…
Islamic State, corruption hinder lone Arab democracy Five years after Tunisians toppled dictator Zine El-Abeddine Ben Ali, the country is at a crossroads. The North African state has successfully ratified a constitution, held free elections…
The Arab Spring toppled long-ruling autocrats across the Arab world. But with Libya in chaos, Egypt back under military rule and Syria and Yemen engulfed in war, only Tunisia has fulfilled the promise of its…
New taxes and cuts to government spending spur economic pain As the Arab Spring swept across the oil-rich Persian Gulf five years ago, the region's monarchies and authoritarian states were able to quell discontent by mixing…
A Tunisian military appeals court has sentenced a blogger to six months in prison, halving a previous sentence for comments critical of the army he made on his Facebook page. Yassine Ayari, 33, received the…
This episode of Global Journalist originally aired in August 2014. Following the Arab Spring, gender equality between men and women in the Middle East is improving. Women today have more opportunities, both in business and…
