For a year Algeria has been rocked by a peaceful mass movement, the Hirak. In April 2019 it forced president Abdelaziz Bouteflika to step down after 20 years in power, after he proposed to stand for a 5th term. It then forced the postponement of two presidential elections, in April and July, because people refused…
Years of blockade have left people highly vulnerable to the impact of Covid-19 Gaza resident Ibtisam tells Dave Clinch. Ibtisam began by telling me that there were two reported cases of Coronavirus in Gaza. Because of the blockade since 2006 the health system is extremely weak. There are only sixty ventilators at the moment in…
Middle East Solidarity magazine is now available to download. During the Covid-19 crisis we are suspending our print publications temporarily, but you can help support our work by making a donation for your copy below. Click to take out an annual solidarity subscription. Download your pdf of the current issue here. Check here for previous…
Dockers in Genoa are mobilising to try once again to stop the loading of war materials on the Bahri Yanbu, a Saudi ship which Amnesty International says is part of a fleet that has ferried millions of dollars of arms to the war in Yemen. The latest news from Genoa indicates that the ship will…
Medical staff at Aqeirbat hospital in the countryside near Idlib in Syria staged a desperate protest on 6 February in a bid to draw attention to the destruction of health care facilities and hospitals. They carried banners inviting António Guterres, the UN Secretary General to visit Idlib and “see for himself” a rapidly growing list…
Since October 1st 2019, protesters demanding an end to corruption in Iraq have camped in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, while tens of thousands have joined mass demonstrations calling for radical political and social change. A major theme of the protests has been opposition to the influence of the Iranian regime over Iraq’s political system, but demonstrators…
It was with great sadness that we learnt about the death of Nita Sanghera, UCU’s president-elect on 16 January. Among the many causes and campaigns that Nita devoted her tireless energy to supporting was mobilising solidarity for activists in the Middle East in their fight for justice. She was always outspoken in her defence of…
In the Algerian province of Béjaia , grassroots democracy reached new heights in the four-day general strike in the run-up to the presidential election on 12 December. Middle East Solidarity spoke to university lecturer Kamel Aissat, an activist with the socialist PST party, about how organisation from below delivered an almost total shutdown of the…
Campaigning journalist Omar Radi was detained and charged with “insulting the judiciary” on 26 December, his lawyer has said. He will face prosecutors on 2 January in connection with a comment he made on Twitter 9 months ago about the role of the judge in the conviction of protest leaders from the Rif region. A…
Hundreds of thousands turned out to mark a year since the beginning of the revolution in Sudan, with mass protests in Khartoum, Port Sudan, El Obeid, Atbara and many other cities on 19 December. Meanwhile government ministries, such as the Ministry of Higher Education commemorated the martyrs by hanging out huge banners and posters.
