On Tuesday, November 6, the Interior Ministry of Bahrain issued an order that stripped 31 Shiite Bahraini activists of their citizenship.  Activists have spoken out against this order via twitter: Mohamad Al Jaafri tweeted:         "To take the citizenship from 31 Bahrainis, before that taking it from a UAE citizen?! Are we living...

Eight Iranian female political prisoners halted their hunger strike after a week protesting sudden violent searches by prison guards. The prisoners started the strike after female guards at Evin prison in northern Tehran carried out unannounced inspections that included body searches, beatings and verbal insults. Cyber activists have been reacting to this news by creating slideshows...

The following article first appeared on ForeignPolicy.com; to access it click here. On October 7, 2012, the office of the Egyptian General Prosecutor decided to start an official investigation accusing me of "blasphemy" -- or, as they call it, "insulting Islam." My crime was expressing my atheist beliefs on my Twitter account. The Egyptian authorities also arrested...

Bazaaries, the Farsi name for Iran’s traditional merchants, are typically a conservative, wealthy bunch reluctant to involve themselves in politics. But their displeasure with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who they believe is responsible for bungling the economy, has changed that. On Oct. 2, in a unique confrontation between the Bazaaries and the government, the merchants closed the Bazaar...

They came for me on December 14, 2006. Plainclothes police carrying automatic weapons stormed into an Internet café in Damascus and grabbed me and a friend. They brought us in a car to the headquarters of the Syrian secret police. Around midnight they dragged me from my holding cell to the man I would come to know only as "Captain Wissam." He was a tall, dark-skinned officer. He...