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Ed Webb

2011 NGO case reopened against Hossam Bahgat, Gamal Eid and others | Mada Masr - 0 views

  • Zarea has not been officially notified if CIHRS is involved in the case, he said, though he has read in local media outlets that the organization is indeed being investigated.Eid told Mada Masr that he also only found out about the case through the media, and has not been formally notified of the investigations.“The travel ban and the media reports are all I know about this case,” Eid said.Eid claimed that both he and his lawyer have attempted several times to find out why he was banned from travel, but to no avail. “I paid the fees for the request, but the officer told me, ‘I won’t tell you anything’,” Eid alleged.
  • “It is being regulated in a political manner, and the media is also playing a role,” Zarea told Mada Masr. “First a smear campaign is launched in the media, and then verdicts are issued.”
  • travel bans — which can remain in place for a year or longer — are often issued without notifying those implicated as to why, or if they are facing criminal charges. Travel bans and trials are often announced in the media before the defendants are informed, Zarea added, pointing to the example of Abdel Fattah, who learned about her travel ban from the talk show host Ahmed Moussa. “Is the state embarrassed to tell them that they are banned from travel,” he asked, “so it sends Ahmed Moussa to tell them?” 
Ed Webb

Germany's 'Gray Wolves' and Turkish Radicalization | Newlines Magazine - 0 views

  • The ban on the Ülkü Ocaklari (Idealist Hearths), also known by the moniker “Gray Wolves,” is framed by various national parliaments as a crackdown on Turkish far-right extremism. In its annual Turkey report released last month, the European Parliament urged the EU and its member states to consider adding the Gray Wolves to the EU terrorist list and to ban their associations. This constitutes the first official bid to link the organization to terrorism. Firing back a rapid denunciation, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanju Bilgiç described the Gray Wolves as part of “a legal movement, which is associated with a long-established political party in Turkey.”
  • The Ülkücü movement is the outgrowth of the far-right Nationalist Action Party (which later became the Nationalist Movement Party, MHP) led by the party chairperson Devlet Bahçeli, a seasoned politician who has commanded do-or-die loyalty among the party’s rank and file since taking over from Alparslan Turkes after his death in 1997. The Idealist Hearths or Gray Wolves began as the party’s youth movement in the 1960s but gained notoriety for its daredevil brand of Turkish nationalism and nefarious role in armed violence in the Cold War modus operandi of the 1970s and 1980s that targeted so-called internal enemies in the murky underworld of the Turkish “deep state.” Among the more notorious members of the Gray Wolves is Mehmet Ali Ağca, the gunman behind the assassination attempt 40 years ago against Pope John Paul II, said to be “in revenge” for an attack on the Grand Mosque of Mecca.
  • Legend, folklore, and a romanticized history of conquest and victory are central to the Ülkücü worldview, not unlike other ideologically organized movements elsewhere. In Turkic mythology, a gray wolf in pre-Islamic times led ancient Turkish tribes out of the wilderness of Central Asia, where they had been trapped for centuries following military defeat, and into salvation.
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  • a sprawling and often amorphous network of clubs, charities, coffee houses, and neighborhood associations
  • Since the rise of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002, Ülkücü groups have rallied around Islamic nationalism, fusing religious scripture with an ethnic ideal of Turkishness
  • For years, the Ülkücü groups have been on the radar of the German national intelligence service and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, flagged as a potential threat to the German constitution. Authorities decry how Ülkücü leaders and members promote pan-Turkish ideologies marinated in racial superiority theories, antisemitism, and hatred of multiple “enemies,” such as the Kurds, Alevis, and Armenians, and pose a threat to the principle of equality
  • The Ülkücü network is organized under two main civil society organizations in Germany. In a 2019 report on the protection of the constitution, the German Federal Ministry of Interior describes the Federation of Turkish Democratic Idealist Associations in Germany (ADÜTDF) as the largest Ülkücü umbrella organization. Established in Frankfurt in 1978, the organization is believed to be represented by 170 local associations and has 7,000 members. This is the figure frequently used by lawmakers to argue that the Gray Wolves constitute the largest far-right movement in Europe. The Union of Turkish Islamic Cultural Associations in Europe (ATIB), based in Cologne, is also accused of being linked to the movement.
  • Inside Turkey, the Ülkücü movement (the name “Gray Wolves” is rarely used in Turkish political discourse) is splintered into subgroups that are connected by a binding ethos of loyalty to the Turkish nation and state. Many identify as the dutiful “soldiers” of Atatürk commanded by duty to flag and country. A subset still draws upon the outdated “Turkish History Thesis,” a pseudoscientific doctrine designed during the early republican years of the 1930s to sever the new secular Turkey from its Ottoman and Islamic past. Instead, the ideology claimed that Turks were racially superior, Central Asia was the cradle of humanity, and that the origins of global civilization lay within Central Asiatic and Turkic prehistory. Others are more overtly concerned with Islamic referents and take a hybrid Turkish Muslim identity as their compass.
  • Puncturing their professed self-image as legitimate civil society groups, over the years, various Ülkücü groups have been implicated in violent acts in Germany that expose the dark, criminal underbelly of many of its members. For example, Turkish ultranationalists cropped up as a subculture of renegade biker gangs, most famously known as Osmanen Germania BC (Germania Ottomans). With around 300 members, the group was banned in Germany in 2018, amid raids in the states of Rhineland-Palatinate, Baden Württemberg, Bavaria, and Hesse. Members were prosecuted for carrying out violent crimes, including attempted murder, extortion, drug trafficking, deprivation of liberty, and forced prostitution.
  • Diaspora communities globally tend to cling to idealized stereotypes of their homeland that give them a larger-than-life sense of self. The Turks in Germany are no different, long preoccupied with reifying the soul of the nation that they left behind. Feelings of longing and remorse mingle with uncertainty as the ever-present question looms large for many — to return to Turkey or to stay?
  • the kind of nationalism embodied by the Ülkücü movement offers a positive identity at a time when many young people still feel like second-class citizens in Germany.
  • Regardless of the pull of identity politics, the majority of Turks shun antagonistic Ülkücü ideas. For many Turkish Germans, the Ülkücü movement is synonymous with a warped, dysfunctional, mafia-esque distortion of Turkish nationalism that has no place in Germany’s democracy. Many who have long called Germany home speak about a different kind of Turkish nationalism, one more akin to civic patriotism and cultural-linguistic pride, than the harsher, all-or-nothing Turkishness that far-right Turks champion. “It does generations of Turks toiling in this country as laborers, teachers, doctors, a disservice when the media caricaturizes us all as Gray Wolves,”
  • Turkish activists argue that media attention on the Gray Wolves seems to be missing the real danger as German prosecutors turn a blind eye to the neo-Nazi or far-right perpetrators of violence against Turkish and other immigrant groups.
  • It is difficult to untangle the proposed terror listing of the Gray Wolves from the rapidly deteriorating relations between Turkey and the EU over the past few years. Talk of a ban in places like Germany sends a message to Turkey that its aggressive foreign policies against EU member states will not go unchecked. Meanwhile, Erdoğan recently railed against the spreading “virus of Islamophobia” across Europe, likening it to the threat of COVID-19.Stuck in the crosshairs are members of the Turkish diaspora, seemingly reduced to pawns in the political fallout between Turkey and the EU. But ban or no ban, the long-standing debate around radicalization among disaffected Turks in Germany and the limitations of inclusive politics is far from over and requires a resolution within Germany’s deliberative public sphere.
Ed Webb

In Tunisia, travel bans are weaponised to silence opposition - 0 views

  • opponents to President Saied's regime have been banned from travelling, often without any clear reason.
  • Before the Tunisian revolution and Arab uprisings that swept the region in 2011, arbitrary travel bans were used against “thousands of Tunisians” according to the NGO Human Rights Watch. 
  • Using anti-terrorism laws, police can not only prevent Tunisians from travelling abroad but also arrest and detain them. Under a series of measures intended to combat extremism, known as S17, close to 100,000 Tunisians have faced border restrictions, according to a 2017 report by the Transitional Justice Observatory Network. 
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  • In 2015, the Ministry of Interior officially launched this informal policy in order to prevent Tunisian youngsters from joining extremist groups. The Ministry of Interior defines it as “a preventative measure to be taken in the presence of information or suspicion about the possible recruitment of people by countries classified as conflict areas like Syria and Libya, or persons who have visited or taken part in conflicts in those countries”. Since then, many government officials have used this judicial flexibility to their advantage. Former chief of government Youssef Chahed, for example, was accused of using arbitrary travel bans as a bargaining chip in order to obtain majorities in the Parliament for the government’s bills.
  • “My parents are now worried when I post something on Facebook about the president,” explained Anis, a Tunisian student in France. “I was too young during Ben Ali’s regime to notice those kinds of things, but  my family tells me that Saied is using the same methods.”
Ed Webb

Egypt just banned 'mahraganat' music: Listen to five of the most popular tracks | Middl... - 0 views

  • Egypt’s musician’s union has banned the popular street music mahraganat after one song was deemed too "immoral" for the Arab world's most populous country. 
  • mahraganat singers would no longer be allowed to work in Egypt, and would be denied licences to perform anywhere in the country
  • Mahraganat, Arabic for "festivals", is a style of electronic folk music that originally started out in some of Egypt’s most impoverished districts and quickly gained prominence, with artists amassing millions of views on YouTube and SoundCloud.  The style of music, which can be described as "electro shaabi" (popular working-class music) is typically played in taxis, tuktuks and more recently, weddings. 
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  • The ban came after a Valentine’s Day concert held in Cairo Stadium, where popular mahraganat artists Hassan Shakoush and Omar Kamal perfomed the song "The Neighbour's Daughter", whose lyrics notably include: “If you break up with me... I will drink alcohol and smoke weed”. Alcohol and marijuana are considered taboos in Egyptian society. 
  • mahraganat has commonly been used by young, burgeoning artists to highlight social issues. The style of music is considered to be "lower class" or vulgar by more traditional or conservative listeners, due to its use of explicit language and favoured topics, some of which include drugs and violence. 
Ed Webb

Libya bans Gadhafi-era officials from state posts - Yahoo! News - 0 views

  • Under pressure from armed militias, Libya's parliament passed a sweeping law Sunday that bans anyone who served as a senior official under Moammar Gadhafi during his 42 year-long rule from working in government.
  • likely to further stall the country's already rocky transition to democracy by ousting elected lawmakers
  • critics say that the law was passed at gunpoint. Militias had surrounded several government buildings in Tripoli last week barring officials from work. Their vehicles mounted with rocket-propelled grenades kept watch on the street during the vote
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  • Human Rights Watch said that while Libyans have a right to see officials who abused their positions under Gadhafi or committed crimes be removed from office, the law is too sweeping. "This law is far too vague - potentially barring anyone who ever worked for the authorities during the four decades of Gaddafi's rule,"
  • Parliamentary spokesman Omar Humeidan said after a live broadcast of the vote that a committee will be formed to see how the new law will be implemented. The committee will be comprised of judges and rights activists already serving on an "integrity commission" that vetted ministers for Gadhafi-era ties. That body will be dissolved. A new clause, though, requires members of the new vetting body to be at least 35 years old and have a degree in Islamic law
Ed Webb

Saudi Arabia bans journalist from writing, media appearances after Trump remarks | Midd... - 0 views

  • Saudi authorities banned journalist Jamal Khashoggi from writing in newspapers, appearing on TV and attending conferences, the Alkhalij Aljadid reported in Arabic.This came after Khashoggi’s remarks during a presentation he made at a Washington think-tank on 10 November in which he was critical of Donald Trump’s ascension to the US presidency.
  • The official Saudi position on Trump's election was perhaps more accurately reflected by a former Saudi diplomat in mid-November who told the Washington Post: “Certainly, we are not expecting Mr Trump to be worse than Mr Obama was,” said Abdullah al-Shamri. Most members of the royal family, he said, “are happy with the result. We are closer to Republicans psychologically.”
  • in his view Trump’s Middle East stances were often contradictory, especially regarding Iran. While Trump is vocally anti-Iranian, he supports President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian conflict, which ultimately bolsters Iranian regional control and rightfully makes Saudi Arabia nervous, Khashoggi was reported as saying.
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  • “When his advisers show him the map, will he realise supporting Putin means supporting the Iranian agenda? And this is what Saudi Arabia is concerned about, to stop Iranian hegemony.”
  • Khashoggi is a well-established Saudi writer and journalist. He has extensive political and media experience and held the position of editor in chief of a number of Saudi newspapers, including the Arab Times and Al-Watan.
  • Khashoggi’s weekly column in Al Hayat newspaper was not published this week, although it has appeared every Saturday for almost five years. His last tweet appeared on 18 November.
Ed Webb

Spoiler alert: Saudi television network bans Turkish soap operas | Middle East Eye - 0 views

  • A Saudi-owned television network has announced it will pull hugely popular Turkish dramas from its schedules, in what experts inside Turkey say is an attempt by Saudi Arabia's crown prince to pacify clerics already outraged by his push to modernise the kingdom.
  • the Arab world’s largest private broadcaster, MBC, was ordered to stop broadcasting often racy Turkish television shows. The MBC Group is Dubai-based and controlled by Saudi investors
  • growing tensions between Turkey and the Saudi Arabia-United Arab Emirates axis in the row over Qatar's support for, among other things, the Muslim Brotherhood
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  • there has been pressure for a long time now to block Turkish programmes that often take up prime time slots from both Lebanese and Egyptian producers and filmmakers
  • Before the recent - and most likely politically motivated if not sponsored - spate of Turkish Ottoman history-based dramas, Turkish television programming was still a major hit in the Arab world
  • To many Middle Eastern viewers, drawn-out Turkish soap operas combining love affairs, drama and mystery more than just being quality television productions represented hope that it was possible to harmoniously merge east and west without sacrificing local identity
  • depiction of a lifestyle choice that is not an option in the Gulf
  • “Producers and TV/film firms have their costs covered before they commence filming via the deals they make with domestic broadcasters,” he said.“Other than that Turkish television has never been more popular. It has a market in eastern Europe, Africa and even Latin America.”
  • “There are so many dimensions to this ban. Another one is that Bin Salman has also launched a big drive on restoring historical places in the kingdom. But with their own Saudi interpretation," Hayek said."And then you have these Turkish historical-based programmes being beamed into peoples’ homes who are very keen to learn about their past and heritage. They can’t be happy about that”.
Ed Webb

Popular Saudi preacher fined, banned from Twitter | Arab News - 1 views

  • A Saudi preacher with more than 2 million Twitter followers has been banned from tweeting by a court that convicted him of jeopardizing public order.The cleric, previously accused of links to the banned Muslim Brotherhood, was also fined SR100,000 ($27,000)
  • convicted the preacher of spreading content on Twitter that “could jeopardize public order and provoke public opinion.”
  • Al-Qarni has often been criticized in the local press and on social media for his radical views about scholars who disagree with his interpretation of religion.
Ed Webb

'She just vanished': Ethiopian domestic workers abused in Lebanon | Conflict | Al Jazeera - 0 views

  • Aster left Ethiopia in search of work. But after a Lebanese family hired her as a live-in housekeeper in 2014, she found herself cut off from the outside world and labouring without pay. Aster’s family, unable to contact her, feared she was dead.
  • Driven by Ethiopia’s rising living costs and unemployment, hundreds of thousands have gone to Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Kuwait. But what many find, activists and domestic workers say, is a cycle of exploitation and modern-day slavery that is hard to escape.
  • Rights groups have long documented cases like Aster’s, finding “consistent patterns of abuse” under Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries’ “kafala” or sponsorship system. The system links a migrant domestic worker’s legal status to the contractual relationship with her employer.
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  • The group helped free Filipina domestic worker Halima Ubpah. According to This is Lebanon, Ubpah was confined without pay in the home of a family with close connections to Lebanon’s political elite for 10 years.
  • Local traffickers in Ethiopia work in tandem with recruitment agencies in Beirut. Ethiopian traffickers are known to have charged up to $500 to facilitate the travel of recruits to Lebanon, where domestic workers make on average $150 a month.
  • Some Lebanese employers force their domestic workers to put in extremely long hours, deny them days off, withhold pay, confiscate their passports to prevent them from leaving, and severely restrict their movement and communication
  • Following reports of abuse, Ethiopia, in 2008, banned its citizens from travelling to Lebanon for work. But the ban has never been properly enforced and the numbers of women migrating to Lebanon for work swelled in subsequent years.
  • “I kept asking ‘when are you going to pay my sister?’ She would say that after six months, Meskerem would receive the accumulated pay,” Tsedale told Al Jazeera by phone from Beirut. In March of 2015, with Meskerem yet to see a penny for more than two years of work, an exasperated Tsedale reached an agreement with her sister’s employer: Meskerem would be paid by the end of the month or she’d be permitted to leave. But when Tsedale went to visit her sister towards the end of March, she found an empty apartment.
  • Meseret started working for a Lebanese family as a domestic worker shortly after arriving in the city of Jounieh in February 2011. Things started off well, Emebet said. Her daughter received her salary and sent money home. But a little over a year after departing Ethiopia, she was suddenly unable to reach Meseret by phone and the monthly remittances stopped coming in. “I don’t know why she suddenly stopped calling,” Emebet said. “She just vanished.” Meseret’s parents made the trip to Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry, a two-hour bus ride away in Addis Ababa on at least two occasions to plead for help in locating their daughter. “They took our names and opened a file for her. We hoped they might provide answers.” But none came
  • “This is Lebanon”, a Canada-based domestic worker rights organisation that works to locate and free women who have been abused under the kafala system
  • “Since 2017, we’ve looked into over 6,000 complaints of various types of abuse,” Uprety told Al Jazeera. “Many are resolved through negotiations, in particular when it’s cases related to unpaid salaries. We escalate things only when abusers refuse to cooperate.”
  • This is Lebanon caseworkers studied the files of both Meskerem and Meseret for most of 2019. A few weeks after Al Jazeera visited the Emebet’s home, the group called Meseret’s Lebanese employer, Dr May Saadeh, a single mother of three daughters. This is Lebanon activists told Saadeh they would post Meseret’s story to the group’s Facebook page if she did not release the Ethiopian woman. Saadeh gave Meseret some cash and booked her a flight back to Ethiopia. Within days, Meseret was free. By September 2019, Meseret arrived back home.
  • Oula Keyrouz admits Aster is still owed six years of wages, but denies her family mistreated Aster, saying she has pictures she took of Aster enjoying herself in the family home. “I saw her like a daughter to me, like another one of my children.”
  • “Out of nowhere, she suddenly told me that I would be going home. I wasn’t allowed to use a phone for seven years. That day, she handed me the phone and said, ‘call your mother, tell her you will see her soon’.”
  • Meseret boarded a late-night flight back to her homeland, with nothing but the clothes on her back and the cash she was handed. She had no luggage and was still owed seven years worth of pay, more than $12,000.
  • When she was taken by her employer to renew her residency papers, Meseret pleaded with officers at the Ethiopian consulate in Beirut for help. But they turned her away, she said. Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry, as well as an official Meseret said she spoke to at the consulate did not respond to requests for comment. Saadeh also did not respond to Al Jazeera’s repeated requests for comment.
  • Meskerem boarded a plane and returned to Ethiopia as part of a group of formerly imprisoned domestic workers whose one-way tickets were covered by donations from members of the large Ethiopian community in Lebanon. Meskerem was a free woman again, but returned to Ethiopia last June, terribly scarred by her ordeal. Emaciated, drained, Meskerem had also lost most of her teeth.
  • After months of recuperating, Meskerem gradually opened up about her time in Lebanon, and spoke of the physical and mental abuse endured, the lack of food and how she was locked in at all times and forbidden contact with the outside world
  • “Aster is happy in our home, she is like one of my daughters,” Oula Keyrouz told Al Jazeera by phone. “I don’t understand what the family in Ethiopia wants because we don’t speak their language. But we treat her well.” But Aster told Al Jazeera that she has endured years of abuse, in particular at the hands of Oula’s husband Michel, allegations Oula denied. Aster explained that years ago Michel nearly strangled her with a belt, as punishment for an ill-fated escape attempt.
  • Oula Keyrouz admitted that Aster was owed six years worth of pay, totalling thousands of dollars. “We keep her money for her in a safe. She will take all of it when she returns to her country one day.” When asked when that might be, Oula Keyrouz said that “because of the dollar crisis in Lebanon,” the family couldn’t afford to send Aster home.
  • On June 17, 2020, a taxi pulled up to the Keyrouz family home. Aster, who had made coffee for Oula Keyrouz, walked outside, pretending to be taking out the trash. Instead, she stepped into the waiting vehicle, never to be seen again by the family that had stripped her of her dignity for six years. She was dropped outside the Ethiopian consulate, where members of a community group who had called the taxi, paid the fare and took her in. “It was like being freed from prison,” Aster later said.
  • Aster was part of a group of 90 Ethiopian domestic workers who were repatriated in September, with the help of Egna Legna Besidet, a Beirut-based nonprofit organisation.
  • Aster successfully escaped the Keyrouz home, but like Meseret and Meskerem, she returned from Lebanon empty-handed after years of toiling without pay.
  • In Lebanon, where as many as 400,000 Ethiopians live, migrant workers are also excluded from the protections of the country’s labour laws – putting their lives and livelihood at risk of abuse and exploitation.
  • When asked about the three women’s cases, Lebanese Labour Ministry official Marlene Atallah said her office was aware of such cases and was working on preventive measures. “We have set up a committee at the ministry tasked with dealing with complaints from domestic workers,” Atallah explained. “There is now an emergency hotline number workers can call in case of violations. We have also begun giving orientation sessions for domestic workers to learn how to bring their cases to Lebanese courts.” But Lebanese courts have rarely sentenced abusive employers to jail time, and any kind of justice is often out of reach for migrant workers.
  • authorities estimate that at least two domestic workers die weekly on average. These are mainly deaths by suicide or from botched escape attempts.
  • the deaths of most migrant workers in Lebanon are rarely looked into.
Joshua Sack

Opinion | Trump's travel ban is a gift to Iran's rulers | Washington Post - 0 views

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    I'm not sure if this is the type of thing that would be appropriate for this group, given the fact that it is an opinion piece.
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    Well-informed opinion is certainly useful and welcome, particularly when tagged as "opinion," as happened here.
Ed Webb

The danger of majority tyranny | openDemocracy - 1 views

  • The “yes”’ to banning minarets has brought these limits to mind, causing a real shock and deep disappointment for many people. I cannot remember any referendum that has divided our country both politically and ethically in a similar manner.
  • Democratically reached decisions reflect the will of the people in a given moment, though, not necessarily a superior wisdom or power. Democratic decisions can be wrong, unjust and impractical, violate the country’s constitution and even violate basic human rights. They can even relate to issues for which the democratic system is quite simply inadequate.
  • The debate about the limits of popular sovereignty will surely go on in Switzerland for some time to come. We need to make sure that the discussion is characterized by clarity of analysis, precision in drawing these borders and public education. An absolutized concept of democracy can threaten freedom and is susceptible to misuse. An enlightened people recognizes and acknowledges the limits of its sovereignty and knows that these limitations are what strengthen democracy and freedom.
Ed Webb

Regime Wages a Quiet War on 'Star Students' of Iran - WSJ.com - 0 views

  • the regime is quietly clamping down on some of the nation's best students by derailing their academic and professional careers
  • In most places, being a star means ranking top of the class, but in Iran it means your name appears on a list of students considered a threat by the intelligence ministry. It also means a partial or complete ban from education.
  • Ms. Karimi says she thinks she got starred because she volunteered in the presidential campaign of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi last spring. She also participated in several antigovernment "Green Movement" protests that are convulsing Iran. "They tell me, 'You are not allowed to study or work in this country any more.' Why? Because I voted for Mousavi and wore a green scarf?"
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  • Star treatment is reserved for graduate students, although undergrads also face suspension for political activity, according to student-rights activists. Several hundred undergrads have been suspended for as many as four semesters, according to student activists and human-rights groups in Iran. Under Iran's higher-education law, students are dismissed from school if they miss four terms.
  • banned from education for life
  • The disciplinary committee suspended him for four semesters because of his political activity. He also was arrested and spent 21 days in solitary confinement, he says. "Suspension is the worst feeling in the world. You are just spending your time idly as your friends go to school and you have no idea what will happen to your future," said Mr. Qolizadeh in a phone interview from the city of Mashad. As the only son of a working-class family, he says, he felt a particular obligation to finish graduate school and get a solid job to help support his family and three sisters. He is currently unemployed.
  • Contending with Iran's youthful population is one of the Islamic Republic's biggest challenges. Some 60% of Iran's 75 million people are under the age of 30, making the country one of the world's youngest. That means most citizens were born after the 1979 revolution that defines modern Iran and thus have no personal memory of it.
  • About two years ago, as an undergrad, Mr. Sabet became involved in a socialist student group. In December 2007, security agents raided one of the group's meetings and arrested 50 members, including Mr. Sabet. He spent 47 days in prison, 23 of them in solitary confinement, he says. He was charged with threatening national security and released on bail, and allowed to go back to school after signing a form saying he would never take part in activism again, he says. Mr. Sabet suspects he was starred at least partly because of his switch to social studies from engineering, combined with his record of activism. Iran's leaders have expressed deep skepticism toward social-studies curricula: In September, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave an unusual speech in which he said the social-studies programs at Iranian universities promote secularism and Western values.
  • the first time a government official told her there was no hope she would ever return to school in Iran or obtain a government job, "It felt like someone had hit me on the head. I couldn't really hear what he was saying anymore." "They basically told me that as far as they are concerned, I am a dead person," Ms. Karimi says.
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    via @madyar
Ed Webb

Syria bans smoking - 4 views

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    yay authoritarianism
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