Your MENA NewsDrops 🗞💧
Hey everyone ! 🙋♀️ Here’s your weekly NewsDrops 🗞💧.
🇧🇭 First, let’s talk about Bahrain: Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) issued a joint statement saying that the Bahraini police arrested 13 minors, beat them and threatened them with rape and electric shocks after small protests broke out on the anniversary of the 10th anniversary of the 2011 uprising last month.
🇮🇱 Ups and downs in Israel’s regional relations: President Benjamin Netanyahu had to postpone his visit to the UAE due to a diplomatic dispute with Jordan, who closed its national airspace to Netanyahu in order to block the flight.
👉🏻 Whilst Israel normalised its relations with the UAE in September 2020, its relations with Jordan have been deteriorating.
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🇸🇦 Saudi keeps a firm grip on activists: despite Saudi Arabia’s provisional release women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul, the court appeal against her sentence was denied.
👉🏻 This means al-Hathloul’s sentence of 5 years and 8 months was confirmed, including 3 years probation and a 5 year travel ban, all because of her fight against the Kingdom’s ban on women driving which led to her arrest in May 2018.
🇮🇶 The Pope in Iraq? Last Friday, Pope Francis made a 4-day visit to Iraq, where he met Iraq’s top Shia Muslim leader Ali al-Sistani in Najaf and appealed for religious groups to put aside their differences.
To people who are not familiar with Iraq’s history and religious demographics, a visit by a Catholic leader may appear bizarre. But here’s the facts 👇🏻
⛪️ 5% of Iraqis are Christian and have been present on territories which now belong to Iraq for centuries.
🔪 In the last century, Iraqi Christians have become one of the most persecuted Christian communities. This worsened in 2003, when the Iraq War started and sectarian violence increased.
💣 They have been systematically persecuted by Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
The Pope, who has already been working on harmonising Muslim-Catholic relations, said his visit was meant to send a ‘‘message of peace and tolerance’’.
🇾🇪🇸🇦 Yemen and Saudi Arabia are at it again: despite the US and UN’s efforts to de-escalate the conflict in Yemen, fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis has intensified.
🧐 Why? The Houthis stepped up cross-border attacks on Saudi targets after US President Joe Biden halted support to Saudi operations in Yemen and reversed former President Donald Trump’s Houthi terrorist designation.
Here’s a timeline of events to make this more clear:
🇲🇦🇩🇪 Morocco-German relations, what’s up? Anger is growing in Rabat after Germany criticised former US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, leading to Morocco suspending contact with the German embassy and German cultural organisations.
🇱🇧 Lebanon’s energy minister stated that the country may go into ‘‘total darkness’’ 💡 by the end of the month if a fuel subsidy is not approved immediately. This will put several sectors at risk, including health and hospitalisation, which would have a disastrous effects on Lebanon’s ability to deal with the pandemic.
That’s all for this week! I hope you enjoyed the read 📚
P.S. I’ll slowly get the newsletter back to its original release day (Tuesday). This week I had to publish Thursday to make sure I had enough news to deliver to you guys!