Angry Lebanese crowds took to the streets on the 17th of November after the authorities had failed to contain wildfires in more than a 100 locations in Mechref and Chouf due to the lack of fire-fighting helicopter maintenance. This came on top of the mounting crises that the country had witnessed recently, namely, shortage of dollars in the market, fall in the value of the local currency, disruption in fuel distribution, and –to top it all- the levying of a monthly tax on a supposedly free application, WhatsApp. 

After the Constitutional Council annulled the parliamentary membership of al-Mustaqbal Movement MP Dima Jamali after an appeal submitted by rival Taha Naji,  Tripoli had to hold bi-elections to reelect a member to fill the Sunni seat.   

Suicidal or practicing for the Tour de France? Sara Stachelhaus is sharing her stories about the underprivileged cyclist minority on their every day adventures through Beirut.

Mahdi Abdel Jawad, Professor of Arabic Civilization and Literature, delves into childhood memories and games overcoming social borders.

An exchange which occurs whenever I encounter new people goes as follows, ‘But you don’t speak with an Aleppian accent,’ to which I respond, ‘My accent is Christian Aleppian.’ This sums up what I like to term ‘my life in the bubble’ or ‘the box’, a state where sectarian identity takes on specific traits, as particular as the way in which certain letters and words are pronounced. I come from a traditional, middle-class Christian Aleppian family, and for most of my life have lived in the ‘Christian’ neighbourhood of al-Aziziya, where the majority of residents belong to the same sectarian and economic class in Aleppo.

How the Lebanese Drag Queen scene is fundamentally challenging heteronormative structures and traditional role models despite the legal system and a lacking tolerance of diversity. While social and familial pressures prevent living out one's identity, Drag shows create a platform for individuality, diversity and alternative family structures- because sometimes you have to choose your own family!

  Leila The Spy ليلى والسرّ - Hasan Mdaghmsh Watch on YouTube This external content requires your consent. Please note our privacy policy.   There's nothing that is not possible and available in Beirut but asking for tampons, the whole city breaks into cold sweat. Mirna El Masri documents her tour through shops and pharmacies of Beirut.

It has been nearly a decade since Lebanese citizens last had the opportunity to go to the polls and cast their votes. The current parliament had been extending its mandate on three separate occasions mainly due to several reasons starting from not agreeing on a new electoral law to the ongoing war in neighboring Syria. Finally, in summer of 2017 a proportional law was agreed on and elections finally will be held on May 6 of this year. With elections approaching we have put together this dossier that would help the voter keep track of everything they need to know about the elections.

Lebanon, often described as the Paris or Switzerland of the Middle East, and still considered safer and more stable than most Arab surrounding countries, is constantly under threat of falling apart due to its political instability and corrupt politicians. Although many Lebanese have lost their faith in their political leaders, it seems that the politicians themselves are eager to go through with the parliamentary elections. The only plausible explanation is that the politicians are confident that their supporters will eventually give them their votes, perhaps for lack of better alternatives.

The sixth issue of Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research, "Sex, Desire, and Intimacy," vol. 3, no. 2 is now Online.

The Fifth issue of Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research, "Gendering Migration" is out.

  INVISIBLE BORDERS - DOCUMENTARY FILM - Heinrich Böll Foundation Beirut - Middle East Watch on YouTube This external content requires your consent. Please note our privacy policy. Watch the documentary by photographer and documentary filmmaker Alfonso Moral and visual artist Andrea Monrás Zöller in collaboration with Heinrich Boell Stiftung-Middle East Office. 

As a religion, Islam is often accused of discriminatory practices towards women. Whether this is true or not cannot be easily determined. On the one hand, there are indeed many verses in Qur’an which assert that women are not equal to men in their human and social status , or in matters of inheritance , court testimony , polygamy, and personal cleanliness . According to Qur’an, on many matters women are not permitted to have a voice - this is particularly the case in sexual relationships. On the other hand, there are other verses in Qur’an which suggest the opposite is true. These verses advocate for equality and harmony between men and women in an Islamic society.

With the development of the Arab Spring across the neighboring Arab nations, such as in Syria and Egypt, and with the inescapable consequences and repercussions on the Lebanese political scene, a new wave of protests against the Lebanese politicians has arisen, particularly following the government’s failure to resolve the mounting garbage crisis. One of the most interesting aspects of these demonstrations is the involvement of numerous Lebanese artists who are using the protests as a space to address their political views. For this purpose, they use  different kinds of artistic expressions, such as music, paintings, graffiti etc. in order to convey messages to a larger public and to attract a bigger number of protestors and activists. 

These days, to ask what effect the Arab Spring had on women is to pose a question which seems ridiculous, irrelevant almost, given the bloody and brutal outcomes of revolutions in countries such as Syria, Libya and Yemen, and the ongoing repercussions of the uprising in Egypt, which leave no room for doubt that the dreams of the millions who demonstrated in Egypt's Tahrir Square in 2011 chanting ‘Bread, Liberty and Social Justice’ and calling for ‘Dignity and Freedom’ widespread in Syria, Libya and Yemen, have become terrifying nightmares which have touched on the lives of all members of society. But the progressive feminist movement across the Middle East is recovering from a particularly traumatic ride, and are finding they are being forced to fight again on issues which were on the table at the very birth of the movement and were felt by many to have been reconciled.

Immediately after we’d finished discussing the challenges facing Aleppo in front of a large audience I was asked by a friend of mine, a leading figure in the Syrian civil society movement, how I was able to appear so unmoved, without anger or emotion, even when talking about the most painful experiences of my life and my losses, such as my mother being martyred; the interrogations I had faced, or other similar incidents, experienced by all Syrian activists such as myself. Sometimes, he said, he was afraid he might one day break down on stage and they’d say ‘Those Syrians! Babies. So emotional!’

The Ba’ath regime in Syria has never truly resolved the national debate over how to maintain the secular nature of the state. Constant assertions of its secularism in official and media discourses are at odds with the actions of the state and the manner in which the country is run. The Ba’ath Party itself, which has ruled the country for the past half century, pretends to be proud of its secular constitution; however, the party has never managed to persuade anyone that it is a genuinely secular organisation. In the 1980s, while militiamen loyal to the current president’s uncle, Rifaat al-Assad, were ripping the hijab from the heads of women in the capital, Syrian television continued to broadcast the Friday prayers every week. In the 1990s, even as thousands of Islamists crowded into the regime’s prisons, the number of mosques was on the rise. State security-run al-Assad Institutes for Qur’an Memorization were opening their doors to new students - a large proportion of which are now in 2016 fighting with Islamist groups against the regime in Damascus.

The Heinrich Böll Stiftung Middle East has the pleasure to invite you to the launch of the 11th issue of Perspectives: “Khadija, do not close the door!” - Women in Peace, in War and in Between Wednesday, December 14, 2016, 7 pm Dar El-Nimer for Arts & Culture, Clemenceau, Beirut  

Now you can watch a video created by The Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE) in collaboration with Heinrich Boell Stiftung-Middle East showcasing some common voting irregularities during student elections at universities. The audiovisual was represented through the lens of a college student, who was continuously getting bombarded by campaigners trying to enforce these irregularities on him; namely coercion, intimidation, bribes, harassment, inaccessibility to the polling station, and lack of privacy in the secret ballot.

Repression of civil society is on the rise all over the world. The charter aims to support civil society organizations as activists throughout the world, to advocate for their rights and freedom of action, and to demand government guarantees.

While wandering around in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, Luna Ali reflects in four versatile sections on two important stages of her life. People, flavours and places make Luna look back into her past and different worlds of thought.

Last performances this week 27, 28, 29, 30 October  English subtitles on 27, 29, 30 October French subtitles on the 28th Book your seat on joggingbooking@gmail.com ahead as the space can take in 75 to 80 persons maximum  Or call/WhatsApp 78841310 / 03035298 Looking forward to sharing this experience with you!

After the recent opening of Horsh Beirut to the public, Assabil Friends of Public Libraries and the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Middle East will soon host #Horsh2016!

On Europe's beaches, women are requested to show more skin, on Lebanese beaches, men are requested to cover up more. What in Germany is considered to be just normal swimming trunks is considered inappropriate in Lebanon.

Roua Seghaier reviews Angela Davis’ "Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement." She highlights the intersections of history, memory, resistance, and movement building in times of violence. "International solidarity is not only possible, it is already showing signs of its emergence. Davis explains that the Ferguson movement has understood that it does not need the traditional charismatic Black male leadership. Without romanticizing the movement, she explains that agency shall not be limited to leaders, centering collectivity at the core of change instead."

In the aftermath of the January 25 Revolution, self-defense tactics became popular against the fear of disorder and the increase of public sexual violence in Cairo. In this article, I examine a number of examples of self-defense invoked by public and private actors after the 2011 Revolution, and differentiate between two types of practices. The first, articulated around the right of legitimate self-defense recognized in the Egyptian penal code, aim to maintain or to restore the established order through the identification of an Other that embodies a threat to the self, property or community. In contrast to this, radical modes of self-defense endeavor to subvert the given order by disrupting the gendered logic of masculinist and state protection and promoting horizontal relations of care and solidarity. Drawing on data generated through interviews with members of the initiative OpAntiSH and the collective WenDo, this article explores the importance of strategies and communities of autonomous self-defense in Egypt in relation to legal and policy measures adopted against sexual harassment by El-Sisi’s regime since 2014.

Spring has returned. That is, SHAMS (the Cultural Cooperative Association for Youth in Theater and Cinema), Cultural Resource and partners have announced the program of the 2016 Spring Festival.

  The Third Circle by Nancy Naous and Wael Koudaih - Heinrich Böll Foundation Beirut - Middle East Watch on YouTube This external content requires your consent. Please note our privacy policy. The Third Circle is an installation and a performance, based on interviews made in Lebanon with several Muslim scholars, religious leaders and experts in Islamic law. After showing them the video extract of a dance performance below, the duo questioned them on how this piece might be created so as to conform to Islamic law. The intention was to find out, with regard to both the dance and the music, what would be authorized by the Sharia.

On the day they removed her name completely from my official papers, my existence was transferred from her “guardianship” to the “guardianship” of my employer, whose name is on my residence card. Struck with fierce bitterness and sadness, I felt as though I had been shattered, like our house. My mother said to me: “It is as though I didn’t give birth to you, or as if I am not Lebanese. It is as though I mean nothing at all.”