Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Britain must end its silence on Egyptian hunger striker Alaa Abd El Fattah, family demand

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‘Time is running out’ for blogger and activist who was given UK citizenship last year

Inside Alaa Abd El Fattah’s cell in the Wadi al-Natrun prison complex – once nicknamed “the valley of hell” for its location in the middle of the desert – fluorescent lights stay on 24 hours a day, along with CCTV to monitor his every move. Now 65 days into a hunger strike, the blogger and activist has become a symbol of resistance against Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi’s regime.

But despite becoming a British citizen last year, he is no closer to being released. His family fear that foreign secretary Liz Truss is failing to do enough to free him. “You would think that the moment he became a British citizen, something would change, not just because of the leverage of another citizenship but also the good relations between Egypt and the UK,” said activist Mona Seif, Abd El Fattah’s sister, who also acquired British citizenship last year.

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Iran’s enemies are to blame for protests over collapsed building, says leader

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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei uses televised speech to condemn ‘psychological war’ waged on country

Iran’s supreme leader, ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has blamed recent protests in Iran on foreign “enemies” seeking to overthrow the government in the Islamic republic.

He said enemies were waging a “psychological war” against Iran by accusing it of piracy for seizing two Greek ships after the US confiscated Iranian oil from a tanker.

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Trove of ancient Egyptian coffins and statues found at cemetery near Cairo

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Painted wooden coffins and bronze statues of deities dating to 500BC found by archaeologists in Saqqara

Archaeologists working near Cairo have uncovered hundreds of ancient Egyptian coffins and bronze statues of deities.

The discovery at a cemetery in Saqqara contained statues of the gods Anubis, Amun, Min, Osiris, Isis, Nefertum, Bastet and Hathor along with a headless statue of the architect Imhotep, who built the Saqqara pyramid, according to Egypt’s ministry of tourism and antiquities.

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Home Office cancels flight to deport Kurdish asylum seekers to Iraq

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Campaigners against flight say Kurdish Iraqis had endured ‘unnecessary torture in pursuit of headlines’

The Home Office has cancelled a chartered deportation flight to Iraq that was due to depart from the UK on Tuesday evening.

Up to 30 Kurdish asylum seekers were facing deportation to northern Iraq in the first flight of its kind for a decade.

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UK about to deport up to 30 Kurdish asylum seekers to Iraq despite dangers

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Foreign Office warns against all travel to the country where Islamic State is still a threat

Up to 30 Kurdish asylum seekers are facing deportation to Iraq in the first Home Office flight of its kind for a decade.

Iraq is deemed to be so dangerous that the Foreign Office warns against all travel there, warning of “a high threat of kidnapping throughout the country including from both Daesh [Islamic State] and other terrorist and militia groups”.

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Impact of Israeli strike in Gaza akin to chemical weapons, NGO report finds

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Shells fired at agrochemical warehouse created toxic plume that has left residents with health problems

An Israeli airstrike on an agrochemical warehouse during last year’s war in Gaza amounted to the “indirect deploying of chemical weapons”, according to a report analysing the attack and its impact.

Incendiary artillery shells fired by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) hit the large Khudair Pharmaceutical and Agricultural Tools warehouse in the north of the Gaza Strip on 15 May last year, setting fire to hundreds of tonnes of pesticides, fertilisers, plastics and nylons. The strike created a toxic plume, which engulfed an area of 5.7 sq km and has left local residents struggling with health issues, including two reports of miscarriages, and indications of environmental damage.

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Protesters in Iran shout down cleric amid anger over building collapse

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Booing and shouting prompt crackdown from riot police at site of disaster, where 31 people died

Protesters angry over a building collapse in south-west Iran that killed at least 31 people shouted down an emissary sent by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prompting a crackdown in which riot police clubbed demonstrators and fired teargas, according to online videos.

The protest directly challenged the Iranian government’s response to the disaster a week ago as pressure rises in the Islamic Republic over rising food prices and other economic woes amid the unravelling of its nuclear deal with world powers.

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Clashes in Jerusalem as Israeli nationalists march through Muslim Quarter

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Israeli media estimated around 25,000 people took part in contentious annual flag march through Muslim parts of Ohld City

Thousands of Israeli religious nationalists have paraded through Muslim parts of the Old City of Jerusalem, putting the city on edge after violence during the same event last year helped spark an 11-day-war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip.

The annual flag march, in which Israelis enter the highly symbolic Damascus Gate and walk through the Muslim Quarter to the Western Wall waving the national flag, takes place around sunset on what Israel calls Jerusalem Day, the celebration of the capture and annexation of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war, a move that is not internationally recognised.

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Don’t make Partygate official Martin Reynolds our man in Riyadh, urge Tories

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Senior figure warns that man mentioned 24 times in Sue Gray report would be ‘representing the Queen’ as ambassador to Saudi Arabia

Senior Tories are warning Boris Johnson against appointing an official at the heart of the Partygate scandal to a top diplomatic job after it emerged that the man was being lined up to be Britain’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Martin Reynolds quit as Johnson’s principal private secretary in February following outrage about Partygate. He left after an email emerged in which he had invited hundreds of Whitehall staff to a “bring your own booze” party in the Downing Street garden in May 2020.

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‘Our friends didn’t die in vain’: Sudan’s activists aim to topple military regime

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Three years after protests toppled Omar al-Bashir, activists hope to bring down another government with little more than phones, placards and motorbikes

A small house on a street in central Khartoum, lost among the dusty blocks of offices and cheap hotels but not difficult to find. On the wall outside, a slightly faded portrait of the smiling young man who once lived here: Abdulsalam Kisha.

Inside, half a dozen men and a woman are meeting, planning, eating, joking. These self-styled “revolutionaries” do not belong to a political party, or even a defined organisation. Instead, they are part of a coalition of hundreds of grassroots associations across Sudan’s towns and cities coordinated by activists who hope to bring down a powerful military regime with little more than placards, smartphones and motorbikes. The efforts of these “resistance committees” in Sudan are being watched – with hope by many, anxiety by autocratic leaders – across a swathe of the Middle East and Africa.

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Iran seizes two Greek tankers amid rising tensions in the Gulf

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IRGC forces swoop on ships in what appeared to be a reprisal for Greece’s role in earlier seizure of Iranian oil tanker

Iran has seized two Greek tankers in helicopter-launched attacks in the Gulf amid a dramatic rise in tension and violent incidents in the region.

Forces from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) descended on the tankers – one of which was named as the Prudent Warrior – in helicopters in what appeared to be a reprisal for the Greek government’s role in assisting the US seizure of an Iranian oil tanker in the Mediterranean in a sanctions-enforcement action earlier in the week.

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Shireen Abu Aqleh: killing of reporter referred to international criminal court

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Lawyers announce that Abu Aqleh’s death earlier this month has been added to case submitted in April

The family of the killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh has allowed her death to be added to a legal complaint being taken to the international criminal court, arguing that Israeli security forces have been systematically targeting Palestinian journalists in violation of international humanitarian law.

The case originally submitted in April by Bindmans had focused on four Palestinian journalists wearing press helmets and vests, two of whom were maimed and two shot dead. It also covers alleged attacks on Gaza media infrastructure in May 2021.

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Spain and Morocco feel the heat as unseasonal snow falls on Colorado

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Analysis: high temperatures affect southern Europe, while in US state mercury rapidly drops more than 30C

Extremely hot and mostly sunny conditions have been experienced across southern Europe this week. Parts of Spain have had record-breaking temperatures for the month of May, with the southern city of Jaén in Andalucia recording 40.3C (104.5F) on Friday 20 May, according to the Spanish weather agency Aemet. Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Andújar, temperatures exceeded 42C two days in a row.

Intense heat also affected northern Africa, with Sidi Slimane city in Morocco recording its hottest day in recorded history, reaching a scorching 45.7C. Although one particular weather event cannot be directly attributed to the climate crisis, scientists believe the severity and duration of heatwaves are expected to increase in the future in response to a warmer global climate.

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Turkey’s plan to forcibly relocate Syrian refugees gains momentum

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President Erdoğan presses on with move by leveraging his Nato veto over Nordic states’ accession

Turkey’s plan to expand a buffer zone inside northern Syria and use it to relocate large numbers of refugees has gained momentum after officials endorsed a military push that analysts from both countries say will force demographic shifts inside Syria.

Though a timeline has not been decided, military and political leaders have confirmed that an extensive operation is being prepared to move Kurdish populations away from Turkey’s southern border and assert Turkish control as deep as 18 miles into northern Syria.

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Israeli forces deliberately shot Shireen Abu Aqleh, Palestinian probe finds

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Israel claims the Al Jazeera journalist was killed during a battle between its soldiers and Palestinian militants

A Palestinian investigation into the shooting of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh has concluded that she was deliberately killed by Israeli forces as she tried to flee, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has announced.

The conclusion echoed the results of a preliminary investigation announced nearly two weeks ago and was widely expected. Israel rejected the findings, with the defence minister, Benny Gantz, calling them, “a blatant lie.”

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Former head of Louvre charged in Egyptian artefacts trafficking case

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Jean-Luc Martinez is accused of conspiring to hide origin of works taken out of Egypt during Arab spring

The former president of the Louvre museum in Paris has been charged with conspiring to hide the origin of archaeological treasures that may have been taken out of Egypt during the Arab spring uprisings, in a case that has shocked the world of antiquities.

Jean-Luc Martinez was charged this week after he was taken in by police for questioning, a French judicial source told Agence France-Presse. Martinez ran the Paris Louvre, the most visited museum in the world, from 2013-21.

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Europe silent on plight of detainees in Libya, says migration chief

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Federico Soda said there needed to be ‘more condemnation’ of the conditions in state-run detention centres in Libya

Europe has been accused by a senior international official of acquiescence over the plight of thousands of migrants in Libya held in arbitrary detention in “deplorable conditions”.

Federico Soda, chief of mission at the International Organisation for Migration’s mission in Libya, said not enough was being done by outside actors to try to change the war-torn country’s “environment of arbitrary detention and deplorable conditions” for migrants.

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Iran says one dead in ‘industrial accident’ near military complex

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Parchin facility has previously come under scrutiny from UN nuclear watchdog

One person has been killed in an “industrial accident” near an Iranian military complex that has previously come under scrutiny from the UN nuclear watchdog, according to state media reports.

“An industrial accident took place [on Wednesday evening] in one of the factories in the Parchin area, leading to the death of one person and injuries to another,” Iran’s official IRNA news agency said. It gave no details of the cause of the accident.

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Russian mercenaries accused over use of mines and booby traps in Libya

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Exclusive: UN investigators say Wagner Group fighters did not mark mines’ positions and may have rigged bomb to teddy bear

Russian mercenaries in Libya systematically broke international law by laying mines in civilian areas without any attempt to mark their location or remove the lethal devices, UN investigators have found.

According to a confidential UN report that will be made public in the coming weeks, fighters from the Wagner Group, a private military company that has been repeatedly linked to the Kremlin by western officials, also rigged booby traps to powerful explosive anti-tank weapons that were responsible for the death of two mine clearers working for an NGO.

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Egypt says climate finance must be top of agenda at Cop27 talks

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Host of November’s summit wants focus to be on ‘moving from pledges to implementation’

Financial assistance for developing countries must be at the top of the agenda for UN climate talks this year, the host country, Egypt, has made clear, as governments will be required to follow through on promises made at the Cop26 summit last year.

Egypt will host Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh in November. The talks will take place in the shadow of the war in Ukraine, as well as rising energy and food prices around the world, leaving rich countries grappling with a cost-of-living crisis and poor countries struggling with debt mountains.

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