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El Principe is a curious mix between a US terrorism series like "24" and a steamy Mexican or Brazilian telenovela. The series is entertaining, until one realises that this show is actually shaping public perceptions of Islam and Spain's Muslims, and that the six million Spanish viewers who tune in every Tuesday night take the show quite seriously.

Viewers don't see it as a comical, distorted depiction of North Africa, but as a reliable source of information on Islamic culture and Muslim family life. In reality, El Principe is evidence of just how backwards Spain's discourse on diversity and immigration is.

If the aim of the series was to show that being Spanish and Muslim is not a contradiction, El Principe has not been successful. The Muslim men are in effect cultural monsters. With his Armani suits and Caribbean accent, Farouk tries to portray a domineering Muslim patriarch - even ordering his sister Fatima to obey him instead of the police. This ultra-macho character, we find out, is actually sterile, yet instead of seeing a doctor, he blames his wife Leila for their infertility.

Knesset member Ksenia Svetlova, a member of Shaffir’s party, raised the gauntlet March 2 by filing a sexual harassment complaint against Channel 20 and the show with the Council for Cable and Satellite TV. Svetlova claims that Segal and the members of the panel violated a clause in the law that defines sexual harassment as a degrading or derogatory comment made because of the subject’s gender or sexuality. It will be interesting to see how the council handles Svetlova’s complaint, especially when dealing with freedom of expression and satire.

Segal is refusing to apologize. He will simply admit that it was a stupid and tasteless joke. During a bellicose interview with Army Radio on March 3, Segal shifted the debate to the political arena, turning it into an argument between right and left. He said, among other things, that the left-wing media was being hypocritical. He has no reason to apologize, he claimed, just as the popular satirical TV show "Eretz Nehederet" ("A Wonderful Land") was not asked to apologize for the sexual connotations of their jokes about right-wing ministers such as Ayelet Shaked (HaBayit HaYehudi) and Tzipi Hotoveli (Likud). When asked about why he was doing his satire on a news show, especially on one devoted to Jewish heritage, Segal responded that he does not make a firm distinction between current events, lighter news and humor. Toward the end of his interview, he said, “Personally, I feel bad that she was hurt. If only she would have left it as a personal insult, instead of bringing in sexual harassment. … But this is an attempt to silence Channel 20.”

the region’s authoritarian leaders are using the threat of IS propaganda as a pretext to clamp down on online critics

“A spate of new anti-terrorism laws around the region have overly broad definitions of terrorism that fail to distinguish between speech that incites violence or promotes extremism and the type of free speech posted by online journalists and human rights activists.”

According to the Brookings Institution, a US-based think tank, IS and its supporters ran some 46,000 Twitter accounts last year

We can’t defeat ISIS if we misrepresent what and who ISIS actually is. Far from being the apocalyptic Islamist group that Wood contends they are, actual IS documents and blue prints reveal IS to be methodical state builders, led by secular Baathists – who aim to restore Sunni-Baathist power in Iraq. These documents also make clear that Saddam’s former generals (anti-Islamists) use Islam as a recruitment tool. “They [ISIS founders] reasoned that Baghdadi, an educated cleric, would give the group a religious face,” notes the German newspaper Der Spiegel.

recruits are drawn to ISIS for reasons that have little to do with extremist Islam. “They are woefully ignorant about Islam and have difficulty answering questions about Sharia law, militant jihad, and the Caliphate,”

the media welcomes only those who blame Islam or “radical Islam” and not those who speak to the conditions that make ISIS appealing

Egypt’s top media regulator on Tuesday put into effect tighter restrictions that allow the state to block websites and even social media accounts with over 5,000 followers if they are deemed a threat to national security.The move is the latest step by the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to suppress dissent. In recent years, Egypt has launched an unprecedented crackdown on reporters and the media, imprisoning dozens and occasionally expelling some foreign journalists.The new regulations, published in the official gazette late Monday, allow the Supreme Media Regulatory Council to block websites and accounts for “fake news,” and impose stiff penalties of up to 250,000 Egyptian pounds ($14,400), all without having to obtain a court order.

Mohamed Abdel-Hafiz, a board member of the journalists’ union, said the government is threatening journalists with “vaguely defined national security violations, as well as vaguely defined political, social or religious norms.”

a broad list of prohibited topics, including “anything inciting violating the law, public morals, racism, intolerance, violence, discrimination between citizens or hatred.”

Playing on the NRA's open contempt of Australia's strict firearms laws, he created a group called Gun Rights Australia which claimed it was pushing for a repeal of the legislation. My job was to use this as a front to endear myself to NRA officials and climb as high as I could within the organisation, recording conversations with them on subjects such as how they respond to a massacre, how they pressure members of the US Congress, and how they manipulate the media.

Over three years, I travelled from Australia to the US numerous times to build connections with the pro-gun community. Some encounters were amusing, others utterly bizarre.

New Media Regulations Enforced Within Days: On March 21, the Supreme Media Regulatory Council issued its first penalty for violating the new bylaws regulating the media that were introduced last week against Al-Mashhad newspaper. According to Al-Mashhad’s Editor in Chief Magdy Shendy, the newspaper was fined 50,000 Egyptian pounds ($2,890) and will be blocked by Egyptian internet providers for six months for “violations of ‘public morals,’ ‘ethics,’ and ‘written traditions’” for a “pornographic picture” and “offensive comments” related to coverage of a female TV presenter. Shendy argues, however, that “the only reason for the decision is our [Al-Mashhad’s] stance on the constitutional amendments,” which would allow President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to stay in power until at least 2034. According to Mada Masr, Al-Mashhad published [Ar] a report documenting police officers bribing Egyptians with Ramadan meals in exchange for votes in the expected referendum on the amendments. The new media regulations enable the Supreme Media Regulatory Council to block and fine websites and social media accounts it believes has published “offending material” including “anything inciting violating the law, public morals, racism, intolerance, violence, discrimination between citizens or hatred.”

“PEN America learned today that a planned event on the rule of law in Turkey in which one of our staff members was scheduled to participate has been cancelled by Columbia University.

We understand that in recent weeks event participants and organizers began to have serious reservations about the composition of the panel for the event, believing that it reflected an insufficient breadth of Turkish voices. Efforts to add an adequately diverse set of Turkish perspectives to the line-up were apparently not fully successful, and we understand that there were intensifying concerns that important viewpoints would not be represented. We also understand that late last week Columbia was approached by a representative of the Turkish government who expressed objections to the planned event and the views that would be reflected in the discussion. We received word of the cancellation today.

we are concerned that the outreach from the Turkish government may have played any role at all in Columbia’s decision to cancel the panel. While there may have been valid grounds to reconsider the make-up of the event and even to postpone it in order to ensure a more representative group of speakers, the direct intervention of the Turkish government in an effort to influence the event creates at the very least a perception that Columbia may have been influenced by Turkey in its decision to call off the event. The government of Turkey is notorious for its relentless crackdown on dissidents, writers, journalists, and scholars, including many who are university-affiliated. Government intrusions in university decision-making of this nature violate academic freedom and freedom of speech. Universities, scholars, and free speech defenders must be vigilant in resisting such interference and avoiding even the perception that decisions may be shaped by government pressure.”

A federal court has held Syria’s government liable for the targeting and killing of an American journalist as she reported on the shelling of a rebellious area of Homs in 2012. The decision could help ease the way for war-crimes prosecutions arising from the Syria conflict.

awarded $302.5 million to relatives of the journalist, Marie Colvin. Of that sum, $300 million is punitive damages for what Judge Amy Berman Jackson, in her ruling, called “Syria’s longstanding policy of violence” that aimed “to intimidate journalists” and “suppress dissent.”

The large size of the award sends a message, he said, that “the rule of law is still a force to be reckoned with,” even amid a global trend toward authoritarianism and the killing of journalists like Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian slain in his country’s consulate in Istanbul.

A British football fan has been arrested and detained in the United Arab Emirates after reportedly wearing a Qatar team shirt to a match.

said to have been unaware of a law against "showing sympathy" for Qatar

The UAE and other countries in the region are currently engaged in a political and diplomatic stand-off with Qatar after they accused the state of supporting radical and Islamist groups. On its website, the Foreign Office warns travellers to the UAE of a June 2017 announcement "that showing sympathy for Qatar on social media or by any other means of communication is an offence. Offenders could be imprisoned and subject to a substantial fine".

the new horror film The Golem, from directors Doron and Yoav Paz

The directors of The Golem, who are Israeli brothers

Reasons for the dearth of Jewish horror fiction are varied, ranging from producers possibly fearing that the ethnic particularism of these themes wouldn’t draw in as wide an audience, to the (incorrect) sense that Judaism doesn’t offer the same baroque supernatural possibilities that Christianity does.

The once-embattled ancien regime is back with full force. Not only to consolidate its power in the present, but also to control the past. Yet, since the outbreak of the January 25 Revolution, besides the Islamists, two distinct communities were – and still are – in conflict, among other things, over the revolution’s nature and principles: the regime and the revolutionary activists. What follows is an exploration of these communities’ strategies to permeate the people’s collective consciousness and to enforce their own narratives of the revolution and its memory, across three different domains: Egypt’s public space; Egypt’s online sphere; and outside Egypt.

in the revolution’s early years, Egypt’s public space was representative of the young activists’ creativity and rebellion

Through graffiti on walls, images, texts and structures, the activists created from the country’s streets and squares memorials to keep the memory of the brave martyrs as well as the revolution’s ideals alive. Walls of Freedom, a 2014 book by Hamdy and Stone, offers thorough insights into the revolution and its artistic works. Young Egyptians’ independent cultural activities, including concerts and exhibitions, played a role in enhancing the historical narrative of the pro-revolution community.

Beirut’s drag-queen scene

The Middle East is known for its conservatism, but with its febrile nightlife and more liberal mores, Beirut has long been hailed as a relative haven for the region’s LGBTQ community, though not without challenges.

Performers usually turn up in their street clothes, transform into a whole new character, then shed their costumes again before slipping back outside. Anissa, though, will be making an entrance tonight. A car to the venue has been organized, and she wants to enjoy the reactions of her fellow passengers. 

On Friday night, American rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers performed a concert for more than 10,000 people with the Pyramids of Giza in the background. Some concertgoers have posted on social media their bewilderment after being asked by policemen upon entry whether they have any “flag of gays”. On Twitter, Samer Al-Atrush wrote that the concert had high security. Among the items banned, Al-Atrush tweeted, were rainbow flags often used in support of the LGBTIQ+ community.

Another user, Ahmed Mohieldin, responded that policemen confiscated his friends’ daughter’s crayons in case they were thinking of drawing a rainbow flag.

less than two years after seven people were arrested for raising a rainbow flag during a concert by Mashrou’ Leila in Cairo.

  The United Arab Emirates says it will now require anyone conducting "commercial activities" through social media to register for a government-issued license.

new rules announced Tuesday target so-called "social media influencers,"

help ensure "that media material respects the religious, cultural and social values of the UAE,"

A study released last week by 416Labs, a Toronto-based consulting and research firm, supports the view that mainstream U.S. newspapers consistently portray Palestine in a more negative light than Israel, privilege Israeli sources, and omit key facts helpful to understanding the Israeli occupation, including those expressed by Palestinian sources.

Since 1967, use of the word “occupation” has declined by 85% in the Israeli dataset of headlines, and by 65% in the Palestinian dataset;Since 1967, mentions of Palestinian refugees have declined by an overall 93%;Israeli sources are nearly 250% more likely to be quoted as Palestinians;The number of headlines centering Israel were published four times more than those centering Palestine;Words connoting violence such as “terror” appear three times as much as the word “occupation” in the Palestinian dataset;Explicit recognition that Israeli settlements and settlers are illegal rarely appears in both datasets;Since 1967, mentions of “East Jerusalem,” distinguishing that part of the city occupied by Israel in 1967 from the rest of the city, appeared only a total of 132 times;The Los Angeles Times has portrayed Palestinians most negatively, followed by The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and lastly The New York Times;Coverage of the conflict has reduced dramatically in the second half of the fifty-year period.

in “Permission to Narrate,” Edward Said pointed out that even as Palestinians were supported by the legality, legitimacy, and authority of international law, resolutions, and consensus, which is the case until this day, U.S. policymakers and media outlets simply refused to “make connections, draw conclusions, [and] state the simple facts.” This refusal remains a mainstay of U.S. media and politics, including a rejection of the central truth that the Palestinian narrative “stems directly from the story of their existence in and displacement from Palestine.”

An Egyptian TV presenter has been sentenced to one year of hard labour for interviewing a gay man last year.A court in Giza also fined Mohamed al-Ghiety 3,000 Egyptian pounds ($167; £130) for "promoting homosexuality" on his privately owned LTC TV channel.

Homosexuality is not explicitly criminalised in Egypt, however, the authorities have been increasingly cracking down on the LGBT community.

lawyer Samir Sabry, who is well known in Egypt for taking celebrities to court, filed a lawsuit against Ghiety for his interview which took place in August 2018

Despite the emphasis on the Islamic coda that prohibits discrimination against fellow black Muslims and Act 21 of the national constitution which emphasizes that all Tunisians are “equal before the law without any discrimination,” racism against its black citizens permeates the social, institutional, and political strata of Tunisia.

“the level of interaction between Sub-Saharan in general and the Tunisian population is negligible.”

Maha Abdelahmid, co-founder of l’Association de défense des droits des Noirs (ADAM or the Tunisian League for the Defence of the Rights of Blacks) states that birth certificates delivered to black Tunisians who are born in Djerba (in the south east of Tunisia, known for its large black community) still carry the title “freed slaves.”