Current Analysis Explaining Egypt's Targeting of Gays Note: Hossam Bahgat, author of this article, was dismissed from his position at the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights two days after it was published. EOHR's secretary-general has commented in the Egyptian press that he won't defend the 52 men arrested on the Queen Boat because Hossam Bahgat • 6 min read
Current Analysis Frosty Reception for US Religious Freedom Commission in Egypt What if you had a party and no one came? On March 22, members of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)—visiting Cairo on a fact-finding tour—waited in vain for members of Egyptian political parties and civil society groups to arrive at the commission's Vickie Langohr • 7 min read
MER Article "This Time I Choose When to Leave" Fatna El Bouih was born July 10, 1955, in Benahmed, a village in Settat province. In 1971, she received a boarder's scholarship to Casablanca's prestigious girls' high school, Lycée Chawqi, and became active in the national union of high school students (Syndicat National des Elèves). Arrested the f Susan Slyomovics • 4 min read
MER Article A Truth Commission for Morocco The grim names Moroccans assign to the post-independence years -- in Arabic, zaman al-rusas and al-sanawat al-sawda, in French les anneés de plomb and les années noires or in English “the years of lead” and “the black years” -- evoke an era of grayness and lead bullets, fear and repression. During Susan Slyomovics • 10 min read
Current Analysis On Hold As Florida recounts distracted the international media, Israeli tanks and helicopters continued to bombard towns and villages throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Following the bombing of a settler bus, Israel launched a massive strike on Gaza November 20, in which helicopter gunships, boats and tanks shelled Gaza City, Jabaliya, Adam Hanieh • 5 min read
Current Analysis Egypt Harasses Human Rights Activists Family and friends of Saad Eddin Ibrahim, chair of Egypt's Ibn Khaldoun Center for Developmental Studies, breathed a huge sigh of relief on August 10, when Ibrahim was finally released on bail by prosecution authorities. The arrest at gunpoint of this internationally renowned pro-democracy activist Nicola Pratt • 5 min read
MER Article Al-Haq On a crisp November day in 1984, I first stepped into the small apartment on Ramallah's main street that housed the offices of what was then known as Law in the Service of Man (a somewhat ungainly translation of the more universal al-qanoun min ajal al-insan -- Law in the Service of the Human Being) Joost Hiltermann • 8 min read
MER Article Problems of Dependency On January 7, 2000, Lisa Hajjar spoke with Abdallahi An-Na'im, a lawyer from Sudan and a prominent human rights scholar and activist. He is professor of law at Emory University. Transcription was provided by Zachary Kidd and funded by the Morehouse College sociology department. Can you highlight so Lisa Hajjar • 16 min read
Current Analysis Petition Charges Israel with War Crimes QANA, SOUTH LEBANON -- A sprawling mass tomb in the heart of this small hilltop village bears silent witness to a war crime committed by Israeli forces here one spring day in 1996. The town, less than five miles away from Israeli-occupied south Lebanon, is the site of a United Laurie King-Irani • 7 min read
Current Analysis The Situation in Iraq: Democracy Cannot Be Manufactured at Foggy Bottom or the Pentagon Few members of Congress are critical of US policy toward Iraq; fewer still are those willing to go public in their criticism of that policy. Not representative Cynthia McKinney. She is one of four members of congress who decided to send their senior aides on a fact-finding tour to Iraq Laurie King-Irani • 6 min read
Current Analysis Deja Vu All Over Again? Two decades after Iran's Islamic revolution of 1978-79, another US administration has been surprised by violent demonstrations on the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities. The Clinton Administration and members of Congress watched with alarm and some helplessness as Iranian student protests pe Haleh Vaziri • 3 min read
Current Analysis Mubarak in Washington Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak visits Washington this week at a time when US-Egyptian relations appear to be harmonious. Yet beneath the surface, relations may not be as cordial as they seem. Particularly discordant notes in the current US-Egyptian relationship concern free trade, regional economi Fareed Ezzedine • 6 min read
