Democratisation & Human Rights

How has the Syrian conflict enhanced the 8-year old political deadlock between the March 14 coalition led by the Future Movement and the March 8 coalition led by Hezbollah?

In this interview carried out by the Syrian journalist and activist Ahmad Silal, Dr. Ziad Majed lays out the challenges that face the Syrian revolution and delay its ultimate victory.The interview was published in Arabic in The Republic on April 23, 2013 under the title: Interview with Ziad Majed on the Syrian Revolution - Two years on: International and Arab positions on the revolution, and the challenges that face it.  

Peaceful La Sagesse Street is about to experience an uproar the like of which it has never known before as the Beirut city authorities renewed the La Sagesse-Al Turk highway project. What is this project aiming to and why it provoked outrage and mobilized the forces of civil society?  

How was the relation between the educational institutions and the Baath regime and what is the current situation after two years of the Syrian revolution’s breakout?  

April 24, 2013 When the nationality Law was drawn up in the 1920s the women’s movement was fighting to eradicate illiteracy among women; today, the universities throng with excellent female students of whom Lebanon is proud. Why then bury our heads in the sands of the past and claim that “the higher interests of the state” bar them from one of the basic rights of citizenship?

“Cast your vote for the leaders, artists, innovators, icons and heroes that you think are the most influential people in the world”, TIME Magazine urges readers of its online edition. Amongst the 153 nominees: Bashar al-Assad.

March 14, 2013 Each time people would leave the mosques to protest (at the start of the revolution) something would be added to what had gone before: a new understanding of what a mosque was would take deeper root and the old concept of mosque would crumble further.

March 14, 2013 Language is a living being that is born and dies, that grows, evolves, spreads out, reshapes the mind, is rational, thinks, feels, guesses, deduces, takes risks, revolts, conquers, is defeated and loses, and one that endlessly destroys itself. How is this language struggle being translated in Syria today?

March 13, 2013 In the early 2000, the Collective for Research and Training on Development – Action, CRTD.A, and its network of feminist allies in the Arab region identified the denial of Arab women’s right to nationality to be a resilient form of state driven discrimination against women. How this reality changed during the last decade and what are the needed actions?