HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement

Yemen | Joint Letter: Release Journalist Naseh Shaker Naseh Shaker has been forcibly disappeared and held in Aden since November 2023. A joint letter calls for his release, medical care, and due process guarantees.

🔵Release him immediately and unconditionally
🔵Ensure urgent medical care and access to family and legal counsel
🔵End unofficial detention, arbitrary detention, and enforced disappearance

📖Full letter: humena.org/yemen-joint-...

Yemen | Joint Letter: Release Journalist Naseh Shaker Naseh Shaker has been forcibly disappeared and held in Aden since November 2023. A joint letter calls for his release, medical care, and due process guarantees.

Authorities refused for months to disclose his whereabouts. In Feb 2025, his family was told he had been held at al-Nasr Brigade’s prison and later transferred to Beir Ahmed prison.

#Yemen 🇾🇪 | Yemeni freelance journalist Naseh Shaker has been detained in Aden since November 2023 after disappearing while travelling to Beirut to attend a Hostile Environment and First Aid Training (HEFAT) course organised by the Samir Kassir Foundation.

Call for Tenders | Lead Developer / Civic-Tech Team – Civic Space Watchdog (AI-Assisted MVP) HuMENA is recruiting a lead developer or small civic-tech team to build the Civic Space Watchdog MVP, an AI-assisted platform to monitor civic space in Tunisia and Egypt.

We are especially keen to hear from teams rooted in the MENA civic-tech and human rights ecosystem. If this sounds like you or someone in your network, please take a look and tag them or share this call in your network.

Deadline for submissions: 10 January 2026

Details: bit.ly/WatchdogDev

HuMENA is looking for a lead developer or small civic-tech team to build the first working version of the Civic Space Watchdog, an AI-assisted platform to monitor civic space in Tunisia and Egypt and prepare for expansion across MENA.

Details: bit.ly/WatchdogDev

Heads up @civicusalliance.bsky.social @humena.bsky.social @hrw.org @alqst.bsky.social @marcowenjones.bsky.social @jongambrell.bsky.social @middleeasteye-rss.bsky.social

HuMENA has joined the #CICC, the world’s largest CSOs network advancing #InternationalJustice.

Through this step, HuMENA continues documenting grave crimes — from #genocide and #warcrimes in #Palestine and #Lebanon to repression across #MENA — working to end #impunity and advance #accountability.

📢 Join us at the #GlobalGathering in Estoril, Portugal.

Circle: Reclaiming Civic Voices & Online Space in SWANA

🗓️ Sept 9 | 🕜 13:30–14:30
📍 Booth 18, SWANA Village
Co-hosted by @humena.bsky.social
, @skylineforhuman
, Vuka! Coalition & @CIVICUS
.

#SWANA #DigitalRights #CivicSpace

At HuMENA, we’re fighting to keep public space open, loud, and untamed. Because without protest, there is no freedom — only silence.

Learn more about our work defending the right to peaceful assembly: www.humena.org

#FoPA #WeProtest #DefendFoPA #CivicSpace #HumanRights #HuMENA #MENA 🕊

They shut down streets,
We build movements.

They criminalize protests,
We defend the right to speak, gather, and resist.

Because freedom of peaceful assembly is not a privilege to be granted, it is a right to be claimed.

The Egyptian Government’s Urban Control Strategies to Prevent Peaceful Protests - HuMENA Discover how Egypt’s government reshaped urban planning to prevent peaceful protests. From Tahrir Square to the New Administrative Capital, learn how security-driven urbanization restricts civic space...

humena.org/blogs/egypt-...

Egypt🇪🇬 | Urban Control & Civic Space
Since 2014, Egypt has reshaped laws & cities to restrict civic space. From Tahrir Square to the New Administrative Capital, public spaces were securitized to deter protests & suppress collective action.

🔗 By Ibrahim Ezzedine: humena.org/blogs/egypt-...

HuMENA: Israel’s Targeting of Journalists in Gaza Is a War Crime and a Crime Against Humanity in the Context of Systematic Genocide and Starvation - HuMENA HuMENA condemns Israel’s killing of five journalists in Gaza as a war crime and a crime against humanity within a policy of genocide and starvation, calling for urgent ICC investigation and internatio...

Since Oct 2023, 192 journalists killed — the deadliest conflict for media ever.

📖 humena.org/israel-war-c...

#Palestine 🇵🇸 | HuMENA condemns Israel’s killing of 5 journalists in #Gaza in cold blood while reporting from the field — a clear #WarCrime and part of a wider policy of #Genocide & #SystematicStarvation.

📖 humena.org/israel-war-c...

Egypt | Ongoing Harassment of Lina Attalah and Escalating Crackdown on Mada Masr and Independent Journalism in Egypt - HuMENA Rights groups condemn Egypt’s judicial and security harassment of Lina Attalah, Mada Masr, and independent media, calling for an end to repression.

This is part of a sustained campaign of arrests, site blocking & judicial harassment targeting Mada Masr and other independent outlets.

🔗 humena.org/lina-attalah...

🇪🇬 #Egypt is intensifying its crackdown on independent journalism.
Editor-in-Chief #LinaAttalah of #MadaMasr was summoned by State Security Prosecution after publishing an investigation into prison abuses.

🔗 humena.org/lina-attalah...

@penamerica.bsky.social @peninternational.bsky.social @pencanada.bsky.social @freedomhouse.bsky.social @humena.bsky.social #FreeGalal

#DigitalRepression #CivicSpace #FreedomOfExpression #HuMENA

From Street to Screen: Maps of Struggle in the Age of Algorithms and Digital Repression - HuMENA Explore how digital repression reshapes protest in MENA. Mostafa Fouad examines activism, algorithmic bias, surveillance, and the fight for online freedoms.

📍 In his latest analytical piece, Mostafa Fouad, Executive Director of HuMENA, examines how repression has moved from the street to the screen.

🔗 humena.org/blogs/street...

As civic space shrinks across MENA, the digital sphere is no longer a refuge; it’s a battleground shaped by algorithms, censorship, and surveillance.

📍In his latest analytical piece, @mostfouad.bsky.social examines how repression has moved from the street to the screen.
🔗 humena.org/blogs/street...

Activism and Identity Politics Under a Sectarian System: The Case of Lebanon - HuMENA Nour Halabi analyzes how Lebanese alternative media like Daraj and Megaphone challenge sectarianism in politics and identity via activist journalism.

✍️ Analysis by Nour Halabi 📖 humena.org/blogs/lebano...

#FreedomOfExpression #CivicSpace

🇱🇧 In #Lebanon, sectarian identity defines access to citizenship and speech. Mainstream media reinforce this exclusion by marginalizing refugees & Palestinians.
Outlets like Megaphone & Daraj have countered these narratives, especially during the Gaza war, with rights-based, critical coverage.

سياسة الهَوية والناشطية تحت نظام طائفي: حالة لبنان - HuMENA تحليل لدور وسائل الإعلام البديلة مثل ميغافون ودرج في مواجهة الطائفية السياسية في لبنان من خلال الصحافة الناشطة وتفكيك سياسات الهوية.

📌 مقال جديد على #هيومينا، يُحلّل كيف تتقاطع الناشطية الصحفية مع سياسات الهوية، وتعيد رسم حدود المشاركة السياسية.

✍️ بقلم نور الحلبي 📖 humena.org/ar/blogs/leb...

#حرية_التعبير #المساحات_المدنية #الناشطية_الصحفية

#لبنان 🇱🇧 | في لبنان، تُستخدم الهوية لإقصاء اللاجئين والمهمّشين، عبر نظام طائفي يعيد تعريف المواطَنة وحدود التعبير. الإعلام التقليدي يُعيد إنتاج هذا الإقصاء، بينما تقابل منصات مثل درج وميغافون الرواية السائدة بخطاب ناقد، خاصة خلال حرب غزة.

استمرار الصمت الدولي يُعد إخلالًا بالالتزامات القانونية الدولية ولا يتماشى مع مسؤوليات الدول الأطراف في اتفاقيات جنيف.

📍غزة | رغم وضوح الأدلة وتكرار التحذيرات، لا يمكن النظر إلى حرمان أكثر من مليونين من المدنيين في غزة من الغذاء والماء والرعاية الصحية كحدث عرضي. بل هو استراتيجية ممنهجة تؤدي إلى عواقب إنسانية متوقعة.

Continued silence is incompatible with international legal obligations and undermines the responsibility of state parties to the Geneva Conventions.

📍 Gaza | Despite clear evidence and repeated warnings, the ongoing deprivation of food, water, and medical care from over two million civilians in Gaza cannot be seen as incidental. It is a deliberate strategy with foreseeable humanitarian consequences.

✍️ الباحثة السورية مايا الجرف تكتب تحليلًا دقيقًا لمعادلات المجتمع المدني في سوريا ما بعد الأسد:
🔗 humena.org/ar/blogs/pos...

🔵 الجمعيات تعمل بتراخيص مؤقتة وتحت تهديد دائم بالإغلاق
🔵 يتم تهميش النساء والمجتمعات المهمّشة ومجموعات الميم
🔵 يُستبعد الشتات السوري سياسيًا رغم دوره المستمر
🔵 العدالة الانتقالية تتجنّب المساءلة وتُبقي على الجراح مفتوحة