When Saudi Arabia announced in September that it would, at last, lift the ban on women driving on June 24, 2018, I thought I would be celebrating a milestone that took brave Saudi women’s rights activists nearly three decades to achieve. Instead, as Sunday approaches, I am deeply disturbed because many of the champions behind the reforms have been silenced, imprisoned or forced into exile.
Poor Record of Coalition and Houthi Indiscriminate Attacks and Aid Restrictions
Discrimination in Education against Pregnant Girls and Adolescent Mothers
Compensate Displaced Residents for Use, Damage
Despite state-sponsored repression and social stigma LGBT people in the Middle East and North Africa are finding ways to speak out and combat discrimination.
Metal towers of lights reached out of the sea and flames belched into the midnight sky as the Aquarius reached Bouri Field, the largest oilfield in the Mediterranean, about 65 nautical miles north of Libya. I had been sitting cross-legged on deck of this rescue ship, listening to a group of West African men telling unbearable stories of captivity and brutality in Libya, the country they had just fled. Amadou concluded, to earnest nods all around, “God left Libya a long time ago.”
“What will happen to us?” “Will they fingerprint us?” was the constant refrain as we watched a human wave of asylum seekers and migrants from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan crossing the Serbia-Hungary border.
