In late June, the first Saudi women to legally drive a car in the kingdom started their engines and took off down the road. The lifting of Saudi Arabia’s ban on female drivers was a…
On the surface, the tiny Persian Gulf nation of Qatar has much in common with Saudi Arabia and the other monarchies of the Arabian peninsula. Hydro-carbons have made it enormously wealthy, and it’s conservative Muslim…
"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…
“It seems every year we get ourselves into some kind of trouble.” The Arab world is one of the most difficult regions to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. In many countries, same-sex relations are…
One of the hardest regions of the globe to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender is the Arab world. In Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the punishment for the crime of sodomy is death by stoning,…
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…
An appellate court in Bahrain upheld a 10-year sentence for an award-winning photojournalist Aug. 30. Ahmed Humaidan was convicted in 2012 after he admitted to attacking a police station. Humaidan later withdrew his confession, telling…
Three journalists working for the British television network ITV were ordered to leave Bahrain on April 19 after being held briefly by authorities. The journalists were reporting on political unrest while there to cover a…
Bahrain’s High Court of Appeal upheld on Sept. 4 a life sentence given to online journalist Abduljalil Alsingace for “plotting to topple” the regime. Alsingace, known as an independent blogger and human rights defender, was…
