The Legal Webs of Transnational Repression

On October 2, 2018, Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi was killed in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul. Intelligence services quickly determined his death to be a targeted assassination ordered by the Saudi crown prince. The instance was a brazen act of transnational repression: the process by which regimes attempt to silence

Mirjam Edel • 7 min read

Big Tech’s Partnership with Authoritarianism

A perspective on the role of major tech corporations in fueling repression.

Marc Owen Jones • 7 min read

MER Article

Covering Surveillance, Struggles and Solidarity in the Arab American Community

Although issues of domestic surveillance and discrimination faced by Arabs living in the United States became more prominent after the attacks of September 11, 2001, MERIP has been covering them continuously since the organization was founded 50 years ago. Arguably the most incisive report in any publication about the US

Pamela Pennock • 4 min read

Current Analysis

Covering Surveillance, Struggles and Solidarity in the Arab American Community

Although issues of domestic surveillance and discrimination faced by Arabs living in the United States became more prominent after the attacks of September 11, 2001, MERIP has been covering them continuously since the organization was founded 50 years ago. Pamela Pennock surveys how MERIP has writte

Pamela Pennock • 3 min read

Current Analysis

Egypt’s Arrested Digital Spaces

Egypt's President Sisi has acquired sophisticated technological capabilities to block internet activity, passed restrictive internet legislation and now surveils users and censors content on a scale never seen before. Much of this has been facilitated by Western allies who have been more than happy

Samuel Woodhams • 9 min read

Current Analysis

Title VI and Middle East Studies

In the past few years, pro-Israel groups have mounted an escalating and concerted effort to set the contours of scholarly debate about Israel on American campuses. This fall, two such organizations, the AMCHA Initiative and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, are lobbying Congre

Bekah Wolf • 9 min read

Current Analysis

The Latest Iranian Distractions

While senior Iranian and US officials are planning bilateral talks [http://backchannel.al-monitor.com/index.php/2014/06/8432/breaking-us-iran-to-hold-bilateral-nuclear-talks-in-geneva/] over Iran’s nuclear research program [http://www.merip.org/mero/mero041614], the Iranian and world media are distr

Norma Claire Moruzzi • 3 min read

Current Analysis

Iranian Cyber-Struggles

From the Green Movement in Iran in 2009 through the Arab revolts that began in 2011, social media have held center stage in coverage of popular protest in the Middle East. Though the first flush of overwrought enthusiasm is long past, there is consensus that Facebook, Twitter and other Web 2.0 appli

Narges Bajoghli • 9 min read

MER Article

From the Editors (Winter 2010)

Is it happenstance or harmonic convergence that the first reports on the Wikileaks cache of State Department cables hit the newsstands alongside stories about the fresh political salience of “American exceptionalism”? Something about the content of the diplomatic missives and, more to the point, the

The Editors • 13 min read

MER Article

Women's Space/Cinema Space

Post-Revolutionary Iranian cinema has attracted critical attention abroad while constituting a vibrant focus of cultural, narrative and technical experimentation at home. In the politically restrictive context of the Islamic Republic, film has become one of the key ways that sensitive topics are bro

Norma Claire Moruzzi • 13 min read

MER Article

Iranian Press Update

The press has played a crucial role in advancing Iran’s emerging reformist agenda. Following the initial wave of attacks on the reformist press, which culminated in the closure of Jame’eh and Tous in the summer of 1998, a second crop of independent dailies appeared in late 1998. These papers exposed

Sha'banali Bahrampour, Ramin Karimian • 3 min read

MER Article

Pushing Back the Limits of the Possible

The “Iranian Spring” caught the world by surprise one fine day in May 1997. Long viewed as the epitome of a rogue state and boycotted and shunned by the international community, Iran successfully held fair elections. Of the four candidates who passed the Guardian Council’s grueling test, Mohammad Khatami

Zarir Merat • 10 min read