Irang Bak explores the American role in the destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq and the continuing “war on terror” and we speak to Ameen Nemer about the relationship between the US and the Saudi regime. The US launched a military invasion in Afghanistan with its Western allies including Britain, following the 9/11 attack in New…
Leeds UCU has condemned the ruling of a Saudi court that ordered a 34-year prison sentence and travel ban to a member of its PhD cohort. Salma Al-Shehab, a human rights defender and PhD student at the University of Leeds was arrested over the peaceful content of her twitter feed by the Saudi authorities in…
by Jawhar Tounsi The Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), Tunisia’s largest trade union defending public and private sector employees, went on strike on 16 June in protest against the austerity measures including freezing public wages and reducing subsidies on basic goods. The general strike across the public sector paralysed traffic across Tunisia after heavily disrupting…
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had profound effects on the Middle East. Irang Bak and Anne Alexander look at how rising food costs and shortages are hurting the poor, while the rich profit from oil prices and arms deals. This year’s Ramadan, for many in the Middle East and North Africa, was different from the…
By Fareid Atta On Friday 28 January 2011, a flash mob, equipped with lightning green aerosol cans and donning make-shift gas masks, stormed the headquarters of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP). The graffiti artists showered the walls of the building with messages of defiance. Ten years on, and perhaps the two most enduring slogans on…
A powerful wave of workers’ struggles has rocked Algeria in recent weeks. Shelagh Smith investigates how battles in the workplaces have evolved alongside the Hirak protest movement. More than two years since the Hirak protest movement erupted in Algeria against a fifth mandate for President Bouteflika and the regime which has ruled Algeria since independence…
Sudanese police forced a sit-in by refugees outside UN buildings in Khartoum to disperse on 15 December. Activists from Sudan Labour Bulletin explain why solidarity with refugees is a crucial task for Sudanese revolutionaries. Late on 15 December, a two-month long sit-in by refugees in front of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner…
Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, the Prime Minister of Bahrain, died on 11 November after half a century in power. He took office one year before Bahrain gained independence from the British, in 1971, and was one of the longest serving Prime Ministers in the world. Uncle of the current King, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, he…
by Shelagh Smith During 2020 and the start of the coronavirus pandemic, repression of Hirak activists, human rights activists and especially journalists has increased. Over 90 people are currently in prison in Algeria for acts related to the Hirak. On 15 September an appeal court in Algiers sentenced journalist Khaled Drareni to a two-year prison…
The Algerian regime hoped that a referendum on constitutional changes would draw a line under two years of mass mobilisations from below, writes Shelagh Smith, but the low turnout and continuing strikes tells a different story. November 1 is the celebration of the start of the Algerian war for independence from the French in 1954.…
MENA Solidarity Network 