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the central idea of journalism — the conviction, as my old boss Peter Kann once said, “that facts are facts; that they are ascertainable through honest, open-minded and diligent reporting; that truth is attainable by laying fact upon fact, much like the construction of a cathedral; and that truth is not merely in the eye of the beholder.”

the responsibility to separate truth from falsehood, which is never more important than when powerful people insist that falsehoods are truths, or that there is no such thing as truth to begin with

a period in which the executive branch of government is engaged in a systematic effort to create a climate of opinion against the news business

It is true that this president did not win by a vast margin, but there is no requirement in a liberal democracy that that be a condition of electoral success. And even if, as the protesters have also insisted, he has been acting largely on behalf of his Freedom and Justice Party rather than the country as a whole, that by and large is how politics works in liberal democracies. There is much rhetoric about “the nation” and “the people,” but electoral democracies work not in favor of all citizens but rather of special interests represented by the party that wins in the elections. 

The trouble, as I see it, is that the pro-democracy movement has not thought critically enough about how the grand alliance against Morsi has come about and how the aims of that alliance conflict with their own aims. They seem to take it for granted that, having been on the winning side in the conflict with the Morsi government, they can now successfully confront the army and its civilian allies (i.e., big business, the media, the judiciary, etc.).

there are so many forces already arrayed against them that there was not much scope for the Morsi government for independent action. Morsi could have tried military officers for crimes? You must be joking. He could have restored a bankrupt economy in a world where powerful institutions and governments, who have their own political agendas, control the flow of capital? He should have reduced poverty in a country dominated by a powerful neoliberal elite? This is not where the real evidence of their incompetence lies–especially considering the short period of one year in which he was president. In my view, their total incompetence, their total stupidity, lies in not anticipating, to begin with, that they would be demonized if they acquired governmental authority. And demonized they were, with a vengeance. Part of this can be related to the crude secularist ideas that dominate most Cairene intellectuals. They were also highly incompetent in their inability, or unwillingness, to reach out to parts of the opposition. In any case, in my view they should never have aspired to the presidency–first of all as a matter of principle, and secondly because the uprising had created colossal practical problems which would be extremely difficult to address by any government. Winning an election does not mean that you are strong, as the Muslim Brotherhood thought it was. It means you are responsible for failures of the state and economy. And, despite their electoral win, the Muslim Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party are and were always weak. One of the things of which they were often accused was that they wanted totalitarian control of society, that they were on the verge of getting what they wanted, which is absolute nonsense, of course. They did not have such control, they could not acquire such control, and there is no real evidence that they wanted such control. This is one part of their stupidity: To be seen to behave as though they had real control of the state.

"People don't accept the fact of metal being music and having fun. It's always in conflict with religion,"

In Bahrain, metal bands and their followers are often branded as Satan worshippers. Gigs are regularly shut down, and the movement largely stays underground to avoid public attention. Many groups rely on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook to stay connected.

the rock and metal movement, which is mostly an expression of freedom

Giulio’s first stay in Egypt in 2012 ended after the hysteria about foreign spies. Government television aired public service announcements warning of foreign spies, and as news spread of citizens detaining foreigners they suspected of being spies, “leaving Egypt seemed the most logical next step,”

the first time he became nervous during his second stay in Egypt was after his photo was taken at the independent union meeting on 11 December 2015

A week before the anniversary of the revolution, he told me he would not leave his house for a week starting on January 18, except for necessities…He understood that the security situation on the anniversary of the revolution was not good

In search of my story, I got in my car and drove east in mid-May 2015 from Cairo to Suez. Nine months earlier, Sisi had announced the revival of a decades-old “mega-project” to expand the 150-year-old Suez Canal. He pledged that the project would be finished in exactly twelve months, and that every Egyptian would see “immediate returns.” I was skeptical about the promised date of completion and drove through the desert to see for myself. Celebratory billboards lined the route leading out of the city, as if the project was already complete. At the site of construction, I was told that the army had been working round the clock.The new canal was in fact inaugurated on August 6, 2015, twelve months to the day from when the project was first announced, and thousands of Egyptians took to the streets in celebration. Downtown Cairo was awash in flags and fireworks, music, flashing strobe-light shows, and animal-themed blow-up dolls as tall as townhouses whose only visible relationship to the canal might have been symbolic, in their exaggerated size. It brought back memories of the day in February 2011 when President Hosni Mubarak stepped down

The financing of the project under Sisi was shrewd—a tax-free public bond with certificates in denominations as low as ten Egyptian pounds (marketed to students), and a 12 percent interest rate with the option of quarterly payouts. The necessary $8 billion was raised in a week. People everywhere spoke of having put their savings into Suez Canal bonds. Lives felt quantifiably changed—I heard references to “free money.”

the illusion of safety

Following his sham re-election in March 2018, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is deepening his crackdown on dissent. Citizens involved in peaceful pro-democracy activism, research, or government criticism on social media have been detained under shadowy National Security Case 621/2018. Others have been handed harsh prison sentences in unfair military trials. Those targeted have diverse political profiles and include prominent figures previously left alone by the regime. All this suggests that al-Sisi is aiming to transform Egypt from an authoritarian system that limits independent politics into a totalitarian one that wants to eliminate them entirely

Some have attempted to make the Arab spring ‘unknowable’ as a socio-political phenomenon, all the better to obscure the intentions of its subjects and justify counterrevolution. But the reality is that its aims of establishing freedom and democracy in a region run by decades-old systems of tyranny exists beyond its popularly accepted timeline

In almost every national situation where counterrevolution has triumphed, it has been allowed to do so without any hindrance by the democratic West – in fact, in many cases it’s with direct or indirect support from it

There was never any true support for democracy from those who pretended to be its bastions and patrons, all while powerful foreign anti-democratic forces, such as Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, mobilised viciously on the side of counterrevolution to crush nascent democracy

Given the enthusiasm of the Kalfat villagers and the headlines in some of Turkey's major newspapers — like those proclaiming “Welcome Cousin Boris” and the “Grandson of the Ottomans” — one might think that Johnson’s ancestors were respected and beloved figures in Turkey, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Johnson's great-grandfather Ali Kemal was the last Ottoman minister of the interior, a well-known journalist and one of the most-hated figures in the nationalist narrative of the Turkish Republic.

While the mainstream papers went with the treason angle, some social media users offered more nuanced opinions of Ali Kemal. Garo Paylan, an Armenian member of the Turkish parliament, is among those who spoke up in his defense. “Ali Kemal was a conscientious politician,” Paylan tweeted. “He demanded accountability for the big crimes [committed during the Ottoman Empire] such as the Armenian genocide. Had he succeeded, the [culture of] genocide, lynching and the putsch might have been rooted out of the state. The crime remained unpunished. It is repeated today. May Ali Kemal Bey’s soul rest in peace.” Not surprisingly, Paylan’s characterization drew angry responses from nationalist organizations, including the Youth Union of Turkey. Condemning Paylan’s message, the group declared that it will continue to fight against imperialists and their collaborators, who need not be named given the context 

Ali Kemal fled into exile in 1909 in London and was in favor of a British protectorate over Ottoman lands, believing that a war for independence between the Turks and the imperial powers would further provoke the Great Powers and create a dark future for the Turks. Apparently he was badly misguided in this stance against Ataturk, who would ultimately lead Turkey to independence and expel foreign forces from Anatolia.

For the last 10 years, Western (and even Arab) pundits have repeatedly questioned the place of Palestine in the pan-Arab psyche. They surmised that the Arab Spring had refocused Arab minds on their problems at home. They assumed that battling tyrannical regimes and their security apparatuses, reforming corrupt polities and decrepit health care and education systems, combating terrorism and religious extremism, whittling back the power of the military, and overcoming economic challenges like corruption and unemployment would take precedence over an unsolved and apparently unsolvable cause.

reforming the Arab world’s political systems and the security and patronage networks that keep them in power and allow them to dominate their populations appears to be just as arduous a task as resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The difference now is not that Arab populaces have abandoned Palestine. Western and regional observers say the muted outrage over affronts like American support for the annexation of the Golan Heights or recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, or even the Abraham Accords and the subsequent sycophantic embrace of Israel in the Gulf is an indicator of Arab public opinion, that it signals a loss of interest in the cause.It is not. Arabs are of course not of a single mind on any particular issue, nor is it possible to gauge public opinion under tyrannical regimes. But it is indicative of the fact that these authoritarians no longer see the pan-Arab Palestinian cause and supporting it as vital to their survival. They have discovered that inward-looking, nationalistic pride is the key to enduring in perpetuity. It is the final step in the dismantling of pan-Arabism as a political force, one that will shape the region’s fortunes and its states’ alliances in the years and decades to come.

the Syria climate conflict narrative is deeply problematic.[2] Not only is the evidence behind this narrative weak. In addition, it masks what was really occurring in rural Syria (and in the country’s northeast region in particular) prior to 2011, which was the unfolding of a long-term economic, environmental and political crisis. And crucially, the narrative largely originated from Syrian regime interests in deflecting responsibility for a crisis of its own making. Syria is less an exemplar of what awaits us as the planet warms than of the complex and uncomfortable politics of blaming climate change.

much of Syria and the eastern Mediterranean region experienced an exceptionally severe drought in the years before the onset of Syria’s civil war: the single year 2007–2008 was northeastern Syria’s driest on record, as was the three-year period 2006–2009

it is reasonable to say, per the Columbia study, that climate change did make this particular drought more likely

the major issues that have dominated the first year of Emir Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al Sabah’s leadership and the prospects for Kuwaiti politics, which is once again in a state of ferment with no clear resolution in sight

Sheikh Sabah’s time as ruler was marked by an initial period of political deadlock that saw six parliamentary elections and more than a dozen cabinets come and go between 2006 and 2013, and then a calmer spell that culminated in the election of the National Assembly in November 2016, which became the first in nearly 20 years to serve its full four-year term.

relations between the government and the National Assembly have deteriorated in recent months to the point that, now, there is barely a working relationship at all

This piece aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on the constitutionality of the measures taken by the President of the Republic Kais Saied, by examining both the text of the Constitution and the context. This piece argues for a contextual interpretation approach in order to adjust to the dynamic nature of societies.

Article 80 is conditioned on the existence of an “imminent danger threatening the nation’s institutions or the security or independence of the country and hampering the normal functioning of the state.” It is worth noting that, during the Constitutive Assembly’s (NCA) voting on the above-mentioned article, concerns over the broad wording of the article were voiced, due to the absence of definition of what constitutes an ‘imminent danger’ and ‘exceptional circumstances’, those concerns were dismissed by the Rapporteur-General to the NCA, who maintained that the formulation of the article was “clear”.

the intent and real desire did not seem to be there from the beginning to endow the country with a constitutional court formed of competences and working to guarantee the supremacy of the Constitution. Its formation was hindered by the failure of the Assembly to elect its 4 appointees,11The President of the Republic, the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, and the Supreme Judicial Council shall each appoint four members. motivated by disagreements between parliamentary blocs. In April 2021, to unblock the situation, an amendment was proposed to the Article 10 of the Constitutional Court’s Law to cancel the order of the parties that have the authority to appoint members of the Court12The Article lists “successively the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, the Supreme Council of the Judiciary, and the President of the Republic.” . The bill was rejected by the President Kais Saed and sent back to the parliament for a second reading.13Parliament has preserved the same amendments that were proposed, allowing the Supreme Judicial Council and the Presidency of the Republic to choose 8 members of the Constitutional Court without waiting for Parliament to complete the election of 3 out of 4 members of its appointees.  His decision was motivated by the fact that the passing of the law exceeded the constitutional deadlines provided for in Paragraph 05 of Article 148 of the 2014 constitution

The scenes emerging from Iran today elicit a mix of reactions across a region still reeling from the dark legacy of the “Arab Spring,” which itself came on the heels of the “Green Movement” protests in the wake of Iran’s 2009 presidential election. Many Arabs cannot help but recall the sense of hope that reverberated from Tunisia to Yemen, only to be shattered by unyielding repression, war, and the resurgence of authoritarianism. Subsequent protest waves, including those that began in 2019 in Lebanon, Iraq, and Sudan, were similarly met with brutality, co-optation, and dissolution.

Over a decade on from the Arab uprisings, the path toward democracy and freedom for youth across the Middle East has become more treacherous than ever, as liberation movements find themselves fighting against stronger, smarter, and more entrenched regimes that have adapted to modern challenges to their domination.

Technologies that many hoped would help to evade state censorship and facilitate mobilization have been co-opted as repressive surveillance tools.

Fuelled by populist politics, a nationalistic press and the apparent desire to confront complex problems with ‘red meat’ and increased nationalism, Tunisia’s President has steered his country on a dark course.

rather than address the core problems facing Tunisia, its President – buoyed by a supportive media – has embarked on a populist witch-hunt of his political opponents and now one of the country’s most vulnerable groups. 

many acknowledge their fresh of support for the President since his crackdown.  Asked about the 21,000 or so black migrants residing in Tunisia, no one here is racist, they say – they simply want to distinguish between those who are here legally and illegally. It sounds reasonable enough. In fact, it could probably pass for small talk at a Conservative Party fundraiser. However, at least in Tunisia, that reasonableness fades when pressed. “They’re selling cocaine, they’re selling their wives and their girlfriends to each other,” Bassem, a fruit and vegetable wholesaler, told me. “They’re even buying boats and taking still more migrants to Europe.” In this part of Ariana, every Tunisian has a lurid tale, always experienced at one remove, which they reel off as ‘proof’ of the criminality of the country’s black migrant population.

the most severe and sustained political upheaval ever faced by the Islamist regime in Iran. Waves of protests, led mostly by women, broke out immediately, sending some two-million people into the streets of 160 cities and small towns, inspiring extraordinary international support. The Twitter hashtag #MahsaAmini broke the world record of 284 million tweets, and the UN Human Rights Commission voted on November 24 to investigate the regime’s deadly repression, which has claimed five-hundred lives and put thousands of people under arrest and eleven hundred on trial.

This is neither a “feminist revolution” per se, nor simply the revolt of generation Z, nor merely a protest against the mandatory hijab. This is a movement to reclaim life, a struggle to liberate free and dignified existence from an internal colonization. As the primary objects of this colonization, women have become the major protagonists of the liberation movement.

Since its establishment in 1979, the Islamic Republic has been a battlefield between hard-line Islamists who wished to enforce theocracy in the form of clerical rule (velayat-e faqih), and those who believed in popular will and emphasized the republican tenets of the constitution.

This massive earthquake, in fact a geological event that has even created a canyon in the vicinity of Altınözü, in the southernmost province of Hatay, destroyed almost a dozen cities in an astonishingly large region covering over 100,000 square kilometers, including the north-western part of Syria.

the worst natural disaster in the history of the modern Turkish state. The numbers are almost uncountable

The government’s response has been remarkably wanting and slow, which is surprising for a country with the second largest army in NATO and, supposedly, a readiness to face disaster after collecting a special earthquake tax for over 20 years, ever since the infamous 1999 Izmit earthquake

Qatar has not simply spent money to import and train a soccer team: It has also redefined the very idea of citizenship. Like most states in the Persian Gulf, Qatar is a majority-foreigner country. There are only about 300,000 actual Qatari passport holders out of a population of nearly 3 million. Pathways to citizenship are notoriously exclusive, and only 50 new citizenships can be granted per year to those personally approved by the emir of Qatar himself. Yet 10 of the 26 players on Qatar’s national soccer team are naturalized citizens. To comply with FIFA regulations, the entire team consists of Qatari citizens. But these naturalized soccer players are not quite immigrant-origin  national heroes, in the vein of Zinedine Zidane or Zlatan Ibrahimovic. These immigrant players all carry “mission passports”—documents that confer citizenship for the purposes of sports competition

this type of citizenship comes with a built-in expiration date, making these immigrant players’ citizenships temporary as well as second class.

that Qatar has redefined the very nature of citizenship—without fanfare, controversy, and with the sole goal of appeasing FIFA nationality regulations—takes this story of temporary citizen soccer players beyond the realm of Gulf labor exploitation