Culture

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD     I advise you to throw out altogether § 3—the “demand (women’s) for freedom of love”. That is not really a proletarian but a bourgeois demand. — Vladimir Lenin, in a letter to Inessa Armand, dated 17 January 1915       For once I’m …

The Kingdom is to establish a new marine center to preserve underwater cultural heritage in the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf. The center is a natural development from Saudi Arabia’s awareness of its responsibility to protect all forms of heritage, Culture Minister Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan told a …

The Ambassador of Uzbekistan to Egypt, Oybek Usmanov, presented a certificate to the Chairman of the Social Solidarity Committee in the House of Representatives (Lower House), Professor Abdel Hadi al-Qasabi, on his appointment as Uzbekistan’s Tourism Ambassador to Egypt. By Sher Karimov Professor Abdel Hadi al-Qasabi expressed his sincere gratitude …

Netflix Inc will on Thursday debut its first Egyptian television series “Paranormal,” a major step in the streaming service’s Middle Eastern strategy. The series is based on Egyptian novelist Ahmed Khaled Tawfik’s books about a doctor whose lifelong scientific convictions are suddenly called into question. His critically acclaimed novels in …

A young white man was sentenced on Monday to 25 years in prison by a federal court in Lafayette, Louisiana after he pleaded guilty to setting three historically Black churches on fire. Federal District Judge Robert Summerhays sentenced Holden Matthews to 25 years but gave him 18 months credit for …

German police are investigating a Syrian satirist who filmed a video in a Berlin street in which, dressed in an Arab robe and turban, he flogged a handcuffed man wearing a mask depicting French President Emmanuel Macron. The video also showed Fayez Kanfash dragging the Macron character on a leash …

When Um Feras realised there were no leisure spaces for women in her city in Yemen, she founded her own cafe and hopes to change attitudes about women-led businesses. “There were no places for women to gather comfortably, no places belonging to the female community: where the team from administration …

The traditional skills of the Kingdom’s matchmakers have survived many changes, and they are confident that amid rapid social changes among the younger generation and a technological revolution they can continue to ply their trade. As men and women enjoy opportunities to mingle and meet and attitudes across the country …

Pakistani police on Friday briefly fired tear gas at protesters who broke through security blockades in Islamabad in a failed attempt to demonstrate at the French Embassy against the printing of images depicting the Prophet Muhammad. No one was injured and protesters later moved back towards a gathering spot originally …

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi said on Wednesday freedom of expression should stop if it offends more than 1.5 billion people, following the display of images in France of the Prophet Mohammad that Muslims see as blasphemous. Sisi also said he firmly rejects any form of violence or terrorism from anyone …

Top Turkish officials condemned a caricature scorning President Tayyip Erdogan in the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, calling it a “disgusting effort” to “spread its cultural racism and hatred”. Turkish anger at the caricature added fuel to a row between Turkey and France about cartoons of the Prophet …

Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan asked his compatriots to stop buying French goods on Monday in the latest expression of anger in the Muslim world over images being displayed in France of the Prophet Mohammad, which some Muslims consider blasphemous. In Bangladesh on Monday, protesters held placards with a caricature of …

Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Islam, on Tuesday condemned cartoons offending the Prophet Mohammad and any attempts to link Islam with terrorism but did not echo calls by other Muslim states for action against images being displayed in France of the Prophet. A foreign ministry official also said in a statement …

Pakistan summoned the French ambassador in Islamabad on Monday in the latest expression of anger in the Muslim world over France displaying images of the Prophet Mohammad that Muslims consider blasphemous. In Bangladesh on Monday, protesters unfurled placards with a caricature of French President Emmanuel Macron and the words: “Macron …

Pakistan’s prime minister has appealed to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to ban Islamophobic content on the site, warning of an increase in radicalisation amongst Muslims, the government said on Sunday. In a letter, which the Pakistani government posted on Twitter, Imran Khan said that “growing Islamophobia” was encouraging extremism and …

Kuwait’s retail co-ops have pulled French products in boycott over the use of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a French school class on freedom of expression whose teacher was then beheaded by a Chechen teenager. In Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s largest economy, a hashtag calling for the boycott …

Government analysts and private sector investigators were able to rapidly attribute to Iranian hackers a wave of thousands of threatening emails aimed at U.S. voters because of mistakes made in a video attached to some of the messages, according to four people familiar with the matter. Those failures provided a …

Rights groups want participants in a G20 women’s meeting starting in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to seek the release of detained female activists and call out the kingdom for its record on rights. As current chair of the Group of 20 major economies, Riyadh has tried to improve its image …

Saad Hussein, a 42-year-old Yazidi Iraqi, is one of the last in the northern region of Nineveh producing the anise-flavoured spirit, arak, from local dates. Forced to flee his home town of Bashiqa, close to Mosul, when it fell to Islamic State in 2014, he returned after the defeat and …

Hasanain Alminshid had received death threats for his human rights activism for years, but ignored most of them. After his mentor was gunned down outside a police station, he finally made the difficult choice to flee Iraq. “It’s too dangerous now. There have been killings in the open in front …

In 2017, Emmy-winning actor and activist Riz Ahmed gave a speech in Parliament about diversity on screen. “Representation is not an added thrill [because] what people are looking for is a message that they belong,” he said. Soon after, the Riz test – the equivalent of the Bechdel test for the representation of Muslims in …

One of the UK’s leading literary festivals has announced it will not be going back to Abu Dhabi after one of the event’s curators claimed she was sexually assaulted by the United Arab Emirates’ tolerance minister. Caitlin McNamara claimed a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, …

“Watchmen” creator Alan Moore shared his belief in 2017 that superhero movies’ impact on popular culture was “tremendously embarrassing,” and the comic book icon remains just as critical of Marvel and DC films three years later. In a new interview with Deadline to tout his feature film “The Show,” Moore says he remains retired from writing comic …

Uzbekistan, long unknown to most Westerners, is already shaping the travel scene for 2020. This culturally rich and historically compelling country, along with the rest of central Asia, has been named the No. 1 travel region for the new year by travel website Lonely Planet due to its easy access …

Thirteen men, seven of them associated with an anti-government militia group called the Wolverine Watchmen, have been arrested on charges of conspiring to kidnap the Michigan governor, attack the state legislature and threaten law enforcement, prosecutors said on Thursday. The suspects had plotted to abduct Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat …

Netflix Inc is facing a criminal charge in a Texas county for promoting lewd visuals of a child in the French film “Cuties”, according to a statement from Tyler county’s district attorney’s office on Tuesday. The document, filed on Sept. 23, said Netflix promoted material in the film that depicts …

Tourism in Uzbekistan has always drawn people from far and wide. For anyone who knows about the country, this is easy to understand – bright colours, intricate patterns, rich flavours, and friendly people await every visitor. Traces remain of great empires that have long since been blown away by the …

Two days ago Columbia College undergraduates voted overwhelmingly to divest from companies that profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s acts towards Palestinians under “apartheid” law. The university’s president Lee Bollinger promptly repudiated the vote saying it was a “complex” issue on which no campus consensus exists. Speaking to the …

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that a military decision to make the Navy SEAL ethos gender-neutral was “ridiculous” and vowed to overturn it, his latest move to intervene in lower-level military affairs ahead of the Nov. 3 election. Earlier this week, the Navy said it would be making the …

President Donald Trump said on Thursday he condemned all white supremacists including the “Proud Boys,” an organization identified as a hate group, further walking back comments he made this week that were viewed as emboldening the group. “I condemn all white supremacists, I condemn the Proud Boys. I don’t know …

Eighteen-year old Fatima Sultani gazes at the peak of a mountain near Afghanistan’s capital Kabul after completing a morning climbing session, considering her next challenge. She and her team of nine young Afghan mountaineers, including three women, are hoping to climb Afghanistan’s Mir Samir mountain and after that travel to …

President Donald Trump deflected an opportunity to condemn white supremacists during Tuesday’s presidential debate, briefly telling one group to “stand back and stand by” before pivoting to attacking left-wing activists. During a segment on race relations, moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump if he was willing to denounce “white supremacists and …

Author JK Rowling, who has come under fire for statements about trans activism that many have called transphobic, promoted an online store that sells items with offensive, anti-trans phrases. The website, called Wild Womyn Workshop, advertises pins with quotes including the phrases “Transwomen are men,” “Transmen are my sisters,” “Transition = conversion therapy,” …

In just two months, Egypt’s burgeoning #MeToo movement has exposed sexual assaults, spurred legal reform and emboldened hundreds of abuse victims including celebrities to speak out, sparking a long-overdue debate about gender inequality. Now, rights activists in the conservative country say keeping the social media campaign’s momentum going hinges on …

“Today, the Central Asian states face an important strategic task. This is to ensure deep integration of our region into the global economic, transport and transit corridors,” Shavkat Mirziyoyev said. According to the President of Uzbekistan, the countries of the region have managed to create an atmosphere of good neighborliness, …

A group of Saudi dissidents, most of them in exile, on Wednesday announced the formation of a party to push for political reform in Saudi Arabia in defiance of de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who has moved to crush any dissent. The world’s top oil exporter and …

Netflix has struck a five-year exclusive partnership with Saudi Arabian animation studio Myrkott to produce Saudi-focused shows and films along with a similar period first-look option on the company’s upcoming projects. The link-up will entail production of new and exclusive seasons of the “Masameer” cartoon series and related upcoming movies, …

Around 100 musicians in Turkey have committed suicide since the country introduced preventive measures against the COVID-19 pandemic in March, according to statistics released by the Turkish Musicians and Performers Union (Muzik-Sen) early this month. There are roughly 1 million registered musicians in Turkey, many of whom work without insurance …

In an exclusive interview with Arab News on Wednesday, the head of Lebanon’s Maronite church, Bechara Al-Rai, called for all of the many political factions in the country — which has just marked its centenary — to support his call to adopt ‘active neutrality,’ describing it as “part of the …

A Saudi children’s hair stylist has become the first woman to break into the profession, which has long been an exclusively male domain. Wafaa Sakr, who appeared in a viral video inside a barber shop in Taif, said she styles children’s hair, but does not cut men’s hair. She said …

The European Union’s chief executive said on Wednesday there was no place in the bloc for so-called “LGBT-free zones”, a pointed criticism of Poland’s nationalist government pushing to curb the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. “LGBTQI-free zones are humanity free zones. And they have no place in …

A campaign waged against Netflix over “Cuties” and the film’s sexualized portrayal of children produced a surge in U.S. subscription cancellations over the weekend, according to research company YipitData. Netflix subscriber churn rates began to rise Sept. 10, the day after the release of “Cuties” on Netflix, when the hashtag …

As fans patiently wait for Season 24, the creators of South Park have put together an all-new hour-long episode about the Coronavirus hypocrisy and other remarkable 2020 incidents. Trey Parker and Matt Stone will mark the start of the show’s news season with ‘The Pandemic Special’. In this special episode …

Dozens of Western countries voiced concern on Tuesday at Saudi Arabia’s continued detention of women activists and called for those behind the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi to be brought to justice. At least a dozen prominent women’s rights activists were arrested in Saudi Arabia in 2018 as it lifted …