TUNIS, Tunisia– Tunisian activists are stepping up their campaign in support of new laws that grant men and women equal inheritance rights. More than 1,000 people, mostly women, took to the streets of Tunis on Saturday in a national demonstration organized by the Tunisian Coalition for Equality in Inheritance. The women, and …
Southern Libya, a human trafficking hotspot, has long been overlooked. Italy is now trying to tackle the problem, but faces the region’s political vacuum and its booming black market. Typically sidelined in most Libya-related discussions that revolve around the east and the west, for the first time the south has been brought …
Egypt has long thrown its weight behind Khalifa Haftar in Libya, but there are signs that it is opening the door to dialogue with his rivals. Will they listen? In December 2016, Cairo hosted a summit gathering 120 representatives of Libyan tribes and sects that resulted in the Cairo Declaration. It was one …
BEIRUT, Lebanon -Since the outbreak of Syria’s war in 2011, professor Nasser Yassin has been working to understand the ensuing refugee crisis. As Lebanon’s refugee influx intensified, Yassin began exploring how civil society and informal networks could influence government policy and humanitarian programmes. With more than one million officially registered Syrian refugees, Lebanon hosts the largest refugee population per …
BEIRUT, Lebanon -News of a young Ethiopian woman who died a few weeks ago while trying to escape from a seventh-floor balcony east of Beirut prompted outrage across social media, including this post from a group named the Anti-Racist Movement: “Because the conditions are suffocating? Because she hasn’t been paid for x number of …
BEKAA VALLEY, Lebanon -Since the outbreak of the war in Syria in 2011, Lebanon has absorbed more than one million Syrian refugees, registered with the UN’s refugee agency, making it the country that hosts the world’s largest refugee population per capita. Such an intake has produced a demographic shock as Lebanon’s population …
BEIRUT, Lebanon -Lebanon has been facing a political vacuum with its parliament‘s term of office due to expire on June 20. But a new draft law has sought to delay the crisis once more, extending parliament’s term until fresh elections can be held. Months of dispute and weeks of hard negotiations came to …
TUNIS, Tunisia -Last month Mohamed Zorgui found his dog dead on his doorstep, with a chilling note attached to it saying “enemy of Allah”. The 26-year-old rapper and former prisoner from Kasserine said that his beloved pet was killed as a warning after he broke away from the hardline militants who tried …
A draft new law targeting non-governmental organisations’ funding would be the latest blow to Egypt’s beleaguered civil society and a further erosion of civil liberties Egypt’s beleaguered civil society is facing new troubles in 2017, after a draft law was passed last November by the country’s parliament, designed to use the control …
Libya currently has no single, central government, there is no security, oil revenues have halved, and weapons flow out of the country. In the 6th year since the NATO-led intervention in Libya resulted in the toppling of long-time leader Moammar Gadhafi, the North African country has descended into a noticeably worse position …