Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

Joe Stork

Joe Stork was the editor of Middle East Report until 1995 and deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division from 1995 to 2017. He is currently chair of the advisory board of the Gulf Center for Human Rights.

MER Article

Why War?

Since August 5, 1990, we have seen the most extensive and rapid US military mobilization since the end of World War II. As of early October, more than 200,000 US troops in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf region are drawing combat pay. President Bush declares this deployment was necessary to defend

Ann Lesch, Joe Stork • 18 min read

MER Article

Washington Watch

SUPERCOMPUTERS Some chips in the bargaining between Washington and Tel Aviv prior to the Gulf crisis were two-year-old Israeli requests to buy supercomputers -- mainframes that perform scientific and mathematical calculations with great speed, enabling scientists to accomplish rapidly tasks such as

Joe Stork • 5 min read

MER Article

Primer: The Food Gap in the Middle East

As the Middle East enters the 1990s, the food situation cannot be easily captured in catch phrases like “dire emergency." Outside of the Horn of Africa, no country confronts wide-scale starvation, though poor people throughout the region face personal food emergencies daily. Agricultural production

Martha Wenger, Joe Stork • 9 min read

MER Article

North Africa Faces the 1990s

The startling changes that have transformed the political landscape of Eastern Europe in 1989 may have no equivalent in the Middle East exactly, but that region has seen some remarkable developments nonetheless. The Arab versions of perestroika, or restructuring, while less profound in comparison wi

Joe Stork • 11 min read

MER Article

"Everyone Misunderstood the Depth of the Movement Identifying with Aoun"

Mansour Raad is the pen name of an Arab journalist who recently left Beirut and has followed the Lebanese war closely. Joe Stork spoke with him in Europe in late November 1989. Who is Gen. Aoun and what does his “war of liberation” represent?

Joe Stork • 11 min read

MER Article

Political Aspects of Health

Health, along with food and shelter, is a fundamental element of every person's life. If we are in good health we may take it for granted, but when our health is bad -- when we are ill or injured -- it becomes central to our lives.

Joe Stork • 14 min read

MER Article

Prison Conditions in Turkey

Herman Schwartz is a professor at the American University law school in Washington, DC and is a contributing editor of The Nation magazine. In late March he visited Turkey on behalf of Helsinki Watch to investigate prison conditions in that country. He has done similar missions to Poland, Cuba, Czec

Ömer Karasapan, Joe Stork • 8 min read

MER Article

Talking Up Turkey

No one can say that the Turkish government does not know the importance of public relations. In Europe, where Turkey’s candidacy for membership in the Economic Community is hampered by the government’s poor human rights record, Ankara has hired the top-ranked British advertising firm of Saatchi and

Joe Stork • 3 min read

MER Article

The Significance of Stones

Visitors to the West Bank and Gaza get a very immediate, sensory grasp of the significance of stones. In the West Bank, the main cities and towns and many larger villages lie along the ridge of hills and plateaus running north to south and forming a sort of geological spine between the Mediterranean

Joe Stork • 21 min read

MER Article

What Happened in Soviet Armenia?

Early in 1988, the southern Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan witnessed large-scale political demonstrations and ethnic clashes. Renewed demonstrations and street confrontations in mid-May led to the dismissal of the Communist Party chiefs in both republics. Joe Stork spoke to Ronald Grigor

Joe Stork • 9 min read

MER Article

Young, Missed Opportunities for Peace

Ronald J. Young, Missed Opportunities for Peace (Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, 1987).

Joe Stork • 1 min read

MER Article

Police Riot in Yarmuk

Just after midnight on May 15, 1986, some 75 Special Forces of the Public Security Department stormed a dormitory at Yarmuk University to put an end to a student demonstration. They tear-gassed and clubbed the students with “a zeal that bordered on the ruthless,” according to witnesses. At least thr

Joe Stork • 1 min read