& once again via & thanks to the great work ArabLit is doing: JUNE 15, 2019 More than 100 people were killed and hundreds injured in the government’s June 3 attack on a sit-in in Khartoum, where protesters were gathered to demand justice, accountability, and choice in their future governance. The sit-in site had also been a site for art: By Lemya Shammat Before it was brutally stormed at … Read more Against Erasure: Art and Sudan’s Sit-in
via ArabLit: Ahead of the expected verdict for imprisoned Egyptian poet Galal El-Behairy, ArabLit — like PEN centers around the world — is sharing a work El-Behairy wrote in prison: El-Behairy was arrested more than three months ago, on March 3, 2018, on charges related to his most recent book of poems, خير نسوان الأرض, The Finest Women on Earth (2018) and lyrics he wrote for Ramy Essam’s song “Balaha.” A campaign against him … Read more Poet Galal El-Behairy’s ‘Letter from Tora Prison’
24.3.18 THE CLOSER Mahmoud Abbas gets to the end of his reign, the more extreme his language becomes. Recently he spoke about Donald Trump and uttered the words “May your house be destroyed”. In Arabic this is a common curse, and sounds less extreme than in English. But even in Arabic this is not a usual phrase when speaking about a head of state. This week Abbas spoke about … Read more Uri Avnery: Son of a Dog
New New York Times hire Bret Stephens (cc photo: Christopher Michel) Outraged by the NYT hiring a straight-ahead climate denier (which at this point in the game is exactly as inane as hiring a flat-earthler as resident geography specialist) I posted on this & on our cancelling the NYT because of this a few days ago — oddly enough, this post has attracted more viewers than nearly all other … Read more More on Bret Stephens, the NYT’s New Hire: from Climate Denial to Racism
via Arab Lit (in English) & BY MLYNXQUALEY on JULY 28, 2016 • ( 0 ) Today is a Day of Creativity for Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh, serving eight years and 800 lashes in Saudi Arabia for the alleged apostasy in his collection Instructions Within: Graffiti for Ashraf in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. “I am scared to be forgotten.” The Guardian translated this message from the Palestinian poet, artist, and curator … Read more For July 28: Not Forgetting Ashraf Fayadh
Posted by freehaifa. According to the principal chronicler of Dareen’s case, the blogger “Yoav Haifawi”: How “security considerations” become means for torture… We invited everybody to celebrate the return of poet Dareen Tatour to Reineh today, after more than three months in prison and more than six months in house arrest in exile in Kiryat Ono near Tel Aviv (more than 100 km from her home). Yes, we knew that … Read more Dareen Tatour Returned… To Prison!
via January 8, 2016—The poet and civil activist Hila Sedighi was arrested at Imam Khomeini International Airport on January 7, 2016, as she and her husband returned from a trip to the United Arab Emirates, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran has learned. Sedighi’s arrest appears to be in connection with a sentence issued against her in absentia by the Culture and Media Court, a court established … Read more Iranian Poet & Activist Sentenced To Prison
Via the always excellent Arab Literature (in English): BY MLYNXQUALEY on JANUARY 6, 2015 • ( 2 ) Palestinian poet and artist Ashraf Fayadh was arrested by Saudi authorities on January 1, 2014 — charged with “insulting the Godly self and having long hair” — and has yet to face trial: For the last year, Fayadh has been detained in the Saudi city of Abha without clear legal charges beyond having “ideas that … Read more One Year Without Charges: Poet Ashraf Fayadh
This article via Al Monitor: THE PULSE OF THE MIDDLE EAST by Hana Salah Posted December 5, 2014 Translator(s)Pascale el Khoury GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Mystery still surrounds the presence of the Islamic State (IS) in Gaza. Statements in the name of the radical group threatening or claiming responsibility for previous bombings in Gaza are not enough to prove the existence of active members in the besieged Gaza Strip, though IS’ … Read more Gaza writers receive death threats from IS
by Charlotte María Sáenz via: Other Worlds 11 xi 14 Vivos se los llevaron y vivos los queremos. “Alive, they were taken, and alive we want them back,” became the national and international public’s rallying cry for the 43 disappeared male student teachers attacked by municipal police and then handed over to the Guerreros Unidos drug gang on September 26, 2014 in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico. This remains the rallying … Read more Ayotzinapa’s Uncomfortable Dead [1]
