Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi ordered the release of 572 people who had been convicted by the military. A total of 9,714 have been released of the 11,879 detained by the military since last year’s uprising.
An Omani court began a case against 15 protesters accused of defamation and illegal assembly. Authorities have arrested over 30 who had been protesting to demand political reform and release of detained rights defenders.
Turkey has called a NATO meeting to discuss a response to the shooting down of one of its warplanes by Syrian forces—as the Free Syria Army establishes a command center in Istanbul, and sends a delegation to Washington.
As thousands of Egyptians fill Tahrir Square to protest the military’s assumption of new powers, Algerian Islamist leaders warned of an “Algeria-like scenario” —a reference to the country’s decade-long civil war.
Yemeni government forces took back AQAP’s major stronghold towns after a month-long offensive. But al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has grown along with US drone strikes—from a handful of militants to a widespread insurgency.
“Anti-war” voices are cynically seeking to exculpate Bashar Assad in the Houla massacre. At best, they express far greater outrage at supposed Western arming of the Syrian rebels than at Assad’s slaughter of his own people.
An Egyptian court found former president Hosni Mubarak guilty of complicity in the killing of protesters during last year's uprising and sentenced him to life in prison. But his sons and top security officials were cleared of wrongdoing.
Egypt’s secular progressives see a choice between “Islamic fascist” Mohammed Mursi and “military fascist” Ahmed Shafiq in next month’s run-off. Washington connived in isolation of the secularists, because this bloc includes socialists and Nasserists.
As the Assad regime is accused of a new horrific massacre, Damascus and Moscow charge that the US and NATO are backing the uprising. And as harsh repression continues in US-backed Bahrain, the monarchy makes identical charges against Iran.
Demonstrators marked Jordan’s 1949 independence from British rule by demanding reform and rejecting government plans to hike commodity prices and taxes to offset a $3 billion budget deficit.
A court in Bahrain sentenced Zainab al-Khawaja, the daughter of jailed pro-democracy activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja to one month in prison for trying to organize an anti-government protest.
As the Friends of Yemen meeting in Riyadh concentrates on security issues, the economic chaos of the past year of unrest and revolution, coupled with diminishing oil stocks, has created a humanitarian crisis, with 44% of the population undernourished.
