Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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counterrevolution

Dialectics of Hope and Despair in the Arab Uprisings
Sabria Khamis Zidahie, one of the women of Abu Salim, Libya. Her brother was among the 1,270 political prisoners who were executed June 29, 1996, in the Tripoli prison. Family members of the dead have been demonstrating weekly since 2008 to demand justice. The Benghazi courthouse, the symbolic site of the Libyan uprising, now honors the martyrs to the revolution and the political prisoners executed in Tripoli in 1996. Pierre-Yves Ginet/ReduxBelgacem Ben Abdellah, 32, in front of the UGTT (Tunisian Workers National Union), graduated in biological science in 2006, but is underemployed and has gone from one casual job to the next, a problem for many young Tunisians. Tunis, February 2011. Johann Rousselot/laif/ReduxAfter two days of clashes with Mubarak supporters, demonstrators against the regime spent the night in Tahrir Square to carry on their protest. This woman, a former television journalist, staffed a checkpoint on the square, where she searched the women who wished to enter. January 2011. Jacopo Quaranta/LUZ/Redux
MER Article

Dialectics of Hope and Despair in the Arab Uprisings

Alaa Abd El-Fattah and Ahmed Douma, leading Egyptian revolutionaries, wrote these words in 2014 for the Mada Masr piece “Graffiti for Two…Alaa and Douma.” Abd El-Fattah and Douma have spent most of the last decade in jail, much of it in solitary confinement. The uncomfortable coexistence of hope and
Atef Said, Pete Moore • 14 min read