25 Bahman in Iran, 14 Feb in Bahrain

Iran

Live blog at Tehran Bureau and EA WorldView.

Comment from Gene at HP. More from that quarter on selective solidarity.

More from Azarmehr on Egyptian solidarity.

Committee to Protect Journalists on Iran’s imprisonment of journalists.


Bahrain

Today’s Egypt and Beyond live blog at EA WorldView turns to Bahrain.

Glen Carey at Bloomberg, Bahrain Human-Rights Organization Urges King to Free Detainees, and Omar Al-Shehabi at CIF on Bahrain, both via Iraqi American Mojo.

From Foreign Policy magazine last December, Why the Bahrain elections matter, by Kristin Smith Diwan, and from September, Bahrain's Shia crackdown, by Steven Sotloff, and The Internet in Bahrain: breaking the monopoly of information, by Fahad Desmukh.

Ali Abdulemam, blogger and Global Voices contributor, imprisoned in Bahrain since 5 September.


Meanwhile . . .

 . . . in Yemen (more), in Algeria (more), in Libya, in Morocco . . . and what now in Gaza? Also, more from Mojo on why democracy in Iraq has been difficult.

Old fellow you’d best step away

From Victorian valentines you haven’t seen, at Uncle Eddie’s Theory Corner.

Mediterranean anti-totalitarian news

Tunisia

AFP: At least 35 killed in Tunisia riots: rights group.

PARIS (AFP) – At least 35 people have been killed in the riots that erupted over the weekend in Tunisia, the president of the International Federation for Human Rights said on Tuesday.
“We have a list of the names of the 35,” Souhayr Belhassen told AFP. “The total figure is higher. It’s somewhere around 50, but that's an estimate.”

More.

Brian Whitaker writes Tunisia: the brink of revolution.

At FP, Marc Lynch writes Arab regimes on edge.

FT: Riots resonate for youth across Arab world.

Issandr El Amrani of The Arabist writing in Al-Masry Al-Youm: Tunisia: A warning sign for Arab regimes.

The Economist: Hotting up.

France 24: Trouble in paradise: Tunisia’s ‘economic miracle’ unmasked.

On TVO’s Search Engine podcast, Jesse Brown talks to Robert Guerra of the Internet Freedom Project about Tunisia’s Totalitarian Tech.

See EA WorldView for more coverage.

Algeria

At FP, Hugh Roberts writes on Algeria’s national ‘protesta’. Further comment on the article from blogger Kal at The Moor Next Door.

Egypt
At The Arabist, Issandr El Amrani writes about US government policy on democracy promotion in Egypt.

By the time Barack Obama took office in 2009, democratic reform in Egypt had already been relegated to secondary importance. As such, the oft-heard claim that the Obama administration made a radical break with democracy promotion in its Egypt policy is patently untrue. Nonetheless, Obama’s priorities in Egypt have disappointed democracy activists.

More.

Gaza
In the LRB, old guard PLO gal Karma Nabulsi pooh-poohs the Gaza Youth Manifesto. Also read Peter Ryley’s short comment on this.

Turkey
Reporters Without Borders: Former editor of Kurdish daily Azadiya Welat sentenced to 138 years in prison, via Terry Glavin’s anti-totalitarian round-up.

Greece
From November, the BBC Word Service history programme Witness remembers the part played by radio in the 1973 Greek student protest.