Saudi lawyer and Human rights activist Waleed Abulkhair, awarded the prestigious Ludovic Trarieux Prize for his work on defending human rights in the kingdom. The prize’s founder Bertrand Favreau said from Amsterdam that The annual legal award is one of the world’s oldest awards presented to lawyers who “through their work, activities or suffering defend the respect for human rights”. …

  On Friday, Canada offered to take in jailed Saudi activist and blogger Raif Badawi that faces flogging, to rejoin his wife and kids live in Canada as a priority immigrant on humanitarian grounds Quebec Immigration Minister Kathleen Weil announced on behalf of Quebec province that the way for Raif to come to Canada is by offering him an immigration …

By: Ramzy Baroud Writing about and reporting on the Middle East is not an easy task, especially during these years of turmoil and upheaval. But I cannot remember another time in recent history when we have needed journalists to shine in order to challenge conventional wisdom, to think in terms of contexts, motives, alliances, and not ideological, political or financial …

 The Egyptian government referred the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) to investigation on the “NGOs foreign funding” case which led previously to the closure of five international organizations operating in Egypt and to jail  sentences for some of their  staff members. In A new statement, 22 Egyptian NGOs including CIHRS itself condemned the latest measure and consider it …

By: Jonathan Cook Barack Obama used an Israeli TV interview last week to gently rebuke Israel’s prime minister. He warned Benjamin Netanyahu that security obsessions made him able only to “see the worst possibilities”. Mr Netanyahu’s intransigence had destroyed Israel’s “credibility” in regard to a two-state solution, Mr Obama added, indicating that he would not seek to revive peace talks. …