Arms Transfers To The Middle East and North Africa

LESSONS FOR AN EFFECTIVE ARMS TRADE TREATY

Amnesty International report

The numerous unlawful killings and other gross human rights abuses committed in response to the mass protests and demands for change that have gripped the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region since late 2010 underscore, both vividly and tragically, the urgent need for the establishment and implementation of an effective global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). 

All across the region, government authorities responded to protests seen as heralding an “Arab Spring” by using excessive, often lethal force even against peaceful demonstrators while deploying a wide range of weaponry, munitions, armaments and related material much of it imported from abroad.

In Bahrain, Egypt and Yemen, riot police and internal security forces used firearms, shotguns and shotgun cartridges, live ammunition, rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannons and armoured vehicles to suppress and disperse protesters. In Libya, as the country slid into armed conflict, Colonel Mu’ammar al-Gaddafi’s forces launched Grad rockets, mortars and fired artillery into densely-populated civilian residential areas. In Syria
too, government forces have used heavy weaponry, artillery and tanks to fire at civilian areas in their efforts to crush the protests. Incredibly, however, thousands upon thousands of ordinary people have maintained their protests and refused to be cowed by high levels of state violence.

Arms to MENA, AI Report

"Online Security in the Middle East and North Africa"

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Online Security in the Middle East and North Africa
A Survey of Perceptions, Knowledge, and Practice 

By Berkman Center for Internet @ Society

At Harvard University
Published August 01, 2011

Digital communication has become a more perilous activity, particularly for activists, political dissidents, and independent media. The recent surge in digital activism that has helped to shape the Arab spring has been met with stiff resistance by governments in the region intent on reducing the impact of digital organizing and independent media. No longer content with Internet filtering, many governments in the Middle East and around the world are using a variety of technological and offline strategies to go after online media and digital activists.
In this report we describe the results of a survey of 98 bloggers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) carried out in May 2011 in order to study bloggers’ perceptions of online risk and the actions they take to address digital communications security, including both Internet and cell phone use. The survey was implemented in the wake of the Arab spring and documents a proliferation of online security problems among the respondents. In the survey, we address the respondents’ perceptions of online risk, their knowledge of digital security practices, and their reported online security practices. The survey results indicate that there is much room for improving online security practices, even among this sample of respondents who are likely to have relatively high technical knowledge and experience.