In much of the Middle East there is a lot of civil unrest. In Palestine, Palestinian forces are routinely arresting and torturing citizens. The two main groups guilty of this are The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) in the occupied West Bank and Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), these groups are routinely arresting peaceful… Read more »
Israel’s Supreme Court has overturned a ban on a US student from entering the country over her alleged support of an anti-Israel boycott campaign. Lara Alqasem travelled from Florida to Tel Aviv on a student visa on 2 October and has since been held at an airport detention centre pending her appeals. Her lawyers called the court’s ruling a victory… Read more »
A man believed to be a Japanese freelance journalist held hostage in Syria for the past three years has been released, Japan’s government says. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that Japan had been informed by Qatar that a man likely to be Jumpei Yasuda was now in Turkey. Mr Yasuda went missing in June 2015 after travelling from… Read more »
A website for a high profile Saudi Arabia summit was attacked by hackers. Pictures circulating on Twitter showed the Future Investment Initiative website with a mocked-up photo of the country’s ruler about to execute Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The website was later functioning normally after being inaccessible for at least six hours. The summit has seen a series of high-profile… Read more »
The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank and Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip routinely arrest and torture peaceful critics and opponents, Human Rights Watch says. A report based on interviews with former detainees alleges the rival factions have “established machineries of repression to crush dissent”. Security forces, it says, often taunt, threaten, beat, and put detainees in… Read more »