Egypt’s ruler, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, has responded to the growing outcry over mob sexual violence against women in public places by setting up a ministerial committee. More, much more, however needs to be done.
For many Syrian women in Algeria, the gendered experience of violence and displacement has been compounded by the discrimination they now face as women refugees, says Latefa Guemar.
ISIL is now intent on consolidating its military gains in Iraq. Any western intervention would play into the group's hands.
A new social trend in the Islamic Republic of Iran seems to target not only state-sponsored religious norms of rectitude and morality, but also the very defining principles of the Iranian social order.
The remarkable resurgence of Sunni-fundamentalist violence in Iraq has taken the west by surprise, yet it is a symptom of the long-evident inability of the Shia-led government there to exercise authority impartially.
The depiction of Lebanon as the most brittle and even artificial nation in its region is based more on myth than reality, says Hazem Saghieh.
The Democratic Islam Congresses called for by PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan are promoting an interpretation of Islam that bolsters Kurdish nationalist aspirations, but it remains to be seen exactly how they will deploy this turn to religion.
The lightning advance of Islamist fighters across northern Iraq has dangerous echoes of the founding event of the "war on terror" .
Pressure on Europe as asylum-seekers in Libya risk everything to reach safety in Italy while the EU looks the other way.
Syria's recent election is significant not because of its predictable outcome or because it has anything to do with democracy. Instead, it reflects the regime's consolidation of legitimacy and confidence against an embattled opposition.
Despite restrictions on expression in Egypt, cultural trends like the spread of graffiti show that the marginalised have created a space for themselves in the public sphere.
Earlier last week, on 7 May, political activists affiliated to Bahraini opposition groups delivered a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki moon, calling for his office to take a stand against the Bahraini regime’s systematic targeting of the Shi’a community.
