Mid-East Junction

Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, remains one of the most conservative and rigid countries, particularly for women, and for anyone who goes against Islam. Rana Ahmad knows all too well those constraints as she fled her home country after declaring herself an atheist and after having endured the hardships of a woman under the strict control of her family and government. Although the country appears to be going through reforms at the behest of the Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman, such...

For nearly four years now, the civil war in Yemen has raged with no end in sight. Civilians have fallen victim to the fighting with some 15,000 killed or injured, while a humanitarian crisis spreads and threatens to claim more lives. Yemen, is located on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula. It has often sat in the shadow of its eccentric and rich neighbour Saudi Arabia. Unlike its other regional neighbours, Yemen does not have a monarchy , says Adam Baron, a visiting fellow at the...

From Aleppo to Paris. A freelance journalist who posted a video of the evacuation of the Syrian city as Bashar al-Assad's forces took control of it recounts his journey from a war zone to the French capital. In December 2016 the government of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad agreed to a mass evacuation of Aleppo city, which had been under siege for months. The Free Syrian Army and other opposition groups were effectively squeezed out and the United Nations requested that remaining civilians and...

In Iran, it has been obligatory for women to wear a head scarf, or hijab, since 1983, in the wake of the 1979 revolution. Since then, women have been forced to wear the long, loose-fitting chador, and the hijab. To make sure the law is respected, morality police patrol the streets. But two major online movements are showing people -- inside and outside the country -- that Iranian women want to choose. The movements are known as #MyStealthyFreedom and #White Wednesdays. The women in the...

Can art change society? It's not clear whether it can or not, but a group of artists in Egypt believed it could and set off to create such a vision hidden in the oasis governorate of Fayoum, just south of Cairo. Rfi's Anne-Marie Bissada has this report from the village of Tunis in the Fayoum. Just a two hour’s drive south of Cairo, away from the Nile, one comes across the governorate of Fayoum, an oasis in the middle of the desert. As Egypt modernized, Fayoum lagged behind and remained one...

Heavy metal music with a middle eastern twist is not common place, but since 1991, the pioneers of such a genre, the Israeli band Orphaned Land has been using its music to spread the message of peace and tolerance across the often tense Middle East. In this month's Mid-East Junction, RFI's Anne-Marie Bissada speaks with Chen Balbaus, the guitarist of the band, just before their show in Paris.

"What happened after 2014 is another chapter of what happened to this city" say Omar Mohammed, when speaking about his home city of Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq. Mohammed was born in Mosul during some of the worst moments of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. “I was born on 8 April, the Baath party was born on 7 April, and the fall of the regime was on 9 April. I turned 17 when I saw the [US] invasion ... 2014 changed everything in my country," he explains. Mohammed was in Mosul...

When a mosque in Egypt’s Sinai region was attacked by affiliates of the Islamic State armed group in November leaving over 300 people dead the attackers said they were targeting what they described as 'heretics of Islam', known to the wider world as Sufis.Who are the Sufis and why have they been singled-out by some other Muslims? The term ‘Sufi’, will, for many, conjur up images of poets like the Persian Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī from the 13th century, or the Abū 'Abdillāh Muḥammad ibn...

When the French President Emmanuel Macron opened a new Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi this month, he said it would show how beauty was more powerful than hate. The museum wants to promote cultural exchange between West and East – as Amanda Morrow found out, when she was one of the very first visitors to the new Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Iraq’s Kurds have been making international headlines since September after forging ahead with their independence referendum, despite regional and international warnings. They are the only one of the Middle East's Kurdish communities to have their own regional government. The other notable communities are in Turkey, Iran and Syria. So who are the Kurds? Origins “They are a separate ethnic group, living in the Middle East where Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq meet. They have been there as long...

The climate of media, particularly across the Middle East, is constantly changing and facing different challenges than in other regions. But up until now, no one has ever tried to put the habits of Middle Eastern nationals onto paper to truly understand what’s going on in terms of how people are getting their news.

Everyone loves the taste of authentic falafel - but where does this delicious dish come from exactly? That sweet popping sound of boiling oil just before a falafel pops out: balls of bean goodness that have an international following. Once the fried fritters, made of chickpeas or broad beans come out, they're thrown into fresh pitta bread and dressed with vegetables, and tahina…crushed sesame seed sauce. Easy to eat, cheap to buy and everyone agrees they are the typical street food of the...

Saudi Arabia and its allies have ramped up pressure on Qatar since declaring a diplomatic embargo of the the small Gulf state earlier this month. They say the action is because of Qatar's links to Iran and support for the Muslim Brotherhood group but analysts see it as a power struggle over the future of the region. On 5 June several countries, notably Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, announced they were cutting ties with Qatar. This is the first time such action has...

The drums beat a hypnotic rhythm. The fighters, each armed with a bamboo-like rod, display their footwork as they keep an eye on their opponent, accelerating or slowing down in time with the music. They move in circles around one another, often in duels between two, sometimes three or four at a time. This is Tahtib. This week - May 28 - the first ever tournament in Paris is being held. To the majority of people, it’s an unknown sport. But in fact, it’s a 5000 year old martial art that...

Here in the small country of Qatar, the warm breeze from the sea smells fresh, and as you wander the streets in the old souk or along the boardwalk, one is struck by how clean the capital Doha is - pristine would even be a better word. Qatar is considered the world's richest nation with the highest GDP per capita. In fact, the United Nations has classified it as a country of very high human development, ranking it 33 out of 188 countries and territories. This means that the general...

In this month's Global Focus on the Middle East, RFI's Anne-Marie Bissada takes a closer look at what implications Israel's Regularization law might have in the West Bank.

In December, a song and video released by Saudi singer Majed al Esa, called Hwages, which loosely translates into 'Concern', went viral almost immediately. The opening scene shows three women, covered from head to toe in the traditional Saudi dress - the abaya – getting into a car that is being driven by a young boy. Women in the kingdom are prohibited from driving. They then begin to clap and sing in Arabic: “If only god would rid us of men!" The provocative and humorous video doesn't...

It's an industry known worldwide - think about the last time you went into a shop to buy a towel. If you checked the label, chances are it said Egyptian cotton. But while the product itself is recognized worldwide, the industry is in a state of what appears to be a terminal decline. Zagazig, two hours north of Cairo, is farming country. Villages here have been Egypt’s main source of cotton since production began in the 1820s. One of the main factories here takes in cotton from the...