Thousands of protesters faced down riot police at Manama’s al-Qudaibiya Palace, where Bahrain’s cabinet meets, chanting slogans against the small but strategic Persian Gulf state’s monarchy.
Shi’ites held unprecedented protest rallies in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province as security forces fired on demonstrators in northern Yemen and the Egyptian port of Alexandria.
Yemen’s embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh blamed the rising tide of Arab revolution on Israeli subversion, while Libya’s Moammar Qaddafi blamed it on al-Qaeda. Life’s little ironies.
Although the regime has effectively suppressed press accounts, dissident websites in Syria say security forces have dispersed three demonstrations in the past few weeks.
Tunisia’s interim prime minister resigned amid continuing street clashes, with deadly repression also reported from Oman. In Bahrain, 18 MPs resigned in protest of the killings of demonstrators.
Tens of thousands took to the streets in Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen and Bahrain to demand political reforms. The march in Tunis was the largest since the fall of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
On David Horowitz’s Front Page Mag, Phyllis Chesler exploits Lara Logan’s sexual abuse in Tahrir Square to portray the Egyptian revolution as a hatefest of Islamic extremism.
An appeals court in Turkey upheld the convictions of 14 employees of Cumhuriyet, a Turkish news outlet that has been critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an. The defendants—including journalists, a cartoonist, executives and accountants—were sentenced in April to prison terms between four and eight years on charges of "acting on behalf of a terrorist group without being members." The Third Criminal Chamber of the Istanbul Regional Court of Justice reviewed and upheld each of these sentences. In Turkey, sentences less than five years cannot be overturned once they are upheld by an appellate court, meaning that eight of the defendants must now serve out their terms. The remaining defendants with longer sentences plan to appeal to Turkey's Supreme Court. (Photo: WikiMedia via Jurist)
Kamal Abbas, leader of Egypt’s striking CTUWS trade union federation, issued a statement pledging solidarity with the struggles in Libya, Bahrain, Algeria and Wisconsin.
Suez Canal Authority workers went on strike, part of a spreading wave of labor unrest that kept most of Egypt’s economy shut down this week—despite warnings from the military regime.
Hundreds are believed dead in Libya, where security forces fired on protesters in Benghazi and other eastern cities. In Bahrain, protesters defied deadly repression to re-take Pearl Square.
Three Turkish journalists allegedly involved with aiding the Ergenekon coup plot were jailed amid foreign concerns for the treatment of journalists within the country.
