Publications

Homosexuality is a subject that induced the persecution of a lot of individuals and the shed of their blood. The situation in Lebanon is not as dangerous as in other countries in the Arab world for those individuals whose sexual orientation does not comply with that of the majority, but it is not less serious. Threats of death, humiliations, blackmails, attacks, marginalization, discriminations, rejections, depressions, suicide attempts, shame, guilt, emotional life ruined, isolation, are in great majority the load of the openly or clandestinely homosexual persons living in homophobic societies.

No history of the Lebanese civil war can ever be complete if it fails to explain why ordinary Lebanese chose to fight and how they perceive the actions they took during the war. With that in mind, this work has attempted to identify and elucidate some of the many factors that compelled Lebanese to enter the fray.

“At the Edge of the City” is a contemporary critique of urban governance and spatial production in Beirut. The undertaking is advocating in scope, multidisciplinary in approach, and journalistic in style. The book is an edited volume on public space in Beirut, focused on the case of Beirut’s park Horsh Al-Sanawbar, hosting the original textual and visual works of over 25 scholars, professionals, journalists, activists, and artists. “At the Edge of the City” presents multidisciplinary, textual and visual contributions that attempt to shape an understanding of continuously evolving meanings of public space in Beirut, opening up the discussion and raising questions, and challenging the status quo, as well as the social imagination, of public space itself.

This report is the result of the EcoFair Trade Dialogue, a two-years extensive consultation and exchange process that took place across all continents. The proposals have been discussed and improved upon by a great number of representatives from farmer organizations and grass-roots initiatives, politics, the academic world, and civil society organizations. As it is high time to achieve a paradigm shift and start trade negotiations towards a General Agreement on Sustainable Trade, this report understands itself as a contribution to this aim.

The study assesses the perceptions of youth concerning the theme of intercommunal relations, intercommunal special dynamics and the nature of the political system. The study reveals the alarming trend of social and territorial enclaves among youth and the distrust and resentment powered by intercommunal stereotyping. The study concludes with a number of recommendations that have been construed to mitigate the ever-growing scourge of communal tensions. They revolve around curtailing the incessant regeneration of the exclusive and politicized communal identity; de-compartmentalizing intercommunal social relations; addressing the challenges of exclusionary spaces of social relations, and other vital themes that serve to promote social cohesiveness, and peaceful co-existence. Recommendations for future research have also been made.  

This publication describes a new start of cooperation between Europe, the United States, and regional partners in the Middle East to tackle the challenges in Iraq and to help bring peace, stability, and sustainable development to the wider region. With contributions by Layla Al Zubaidi, Bülent Aras, Megan Chabalowski, Richard Gowan, Faleh Jabar, Daniel Korski, Sami Moubayed, Daniel Serwer, and Heiko Wimmen

How to restore the credibility of a country whose foundations and self-understanding are based on the universality of freedom and human rights, but that has violated precisely those rights by practicing torture in Guantánamo and other prisons around the world?

MEEM launched in 2009 the book “Bareed Mista3jil”: a collection of 40 true stories from voices in Lebanon that we seldom hear. Their common thread is that they are all from persons of non-conforming sexualities and gender identities, the life of queer women and transgender in Lebanon.

he Heinrich Böll Stiftung, the German Development Service, the Forum Civil Peace Service and the Working Group on Development and Peace jointly commissioned a study as to understand more the conflict and peacebuilding context and for reflection on options for peace-building by German development and peace organisations.