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The uncowable Lokman Slim

Alex Rowell 4 February 2021

Lebanon awoke Thursday to the gruesome news that Lokman Slim, an outspoken Hezbollah critic and pillar of civil society, had been assassinated in his car.

One year on, a path forward for Lebanon’s uprising

Alex Rowell 17 October 2020

As the French President Emmanuel Macron strolled down a Beirut street named after the first French High Commissioner in Syria and Lebanon, Gen.

Grave atrocities

Orwa Khalife 21 September 2020

The testimony delivered last month in a court in Germany’s Koblenz by the man who has come to be known as the “gravedigger”

“Where do we go now?”

Alex Rowell 13 August 2020

“Beirut doesn’t look like herself this time.” – Mahmoud Darwish Now that the sheer panic and adrenaline of the initial seconds have

Syria’s parliamentary appointments

Orwa Khalife 20 July 2020

Ever since the Assad family seized power in Syria almost fifty years ago, the national parliament has been reduced to an object of

How Caesar will impact Syrian civil society

Al-Jumhuriya Collective 29 June 2020

Last month’s new US sanctions in Syria, commonly known as the Caesar Act, have sparked widespread discussion of their possible political, economic, and

Bullets and burning banks as Lebanon reopens

Al-Jumhuriya Collective 6 May 2020

Angry demonstrations have returned to the streets of Lebanon with a vengeance, following an interruption brought about by Coronavirus lockdown measures, now being

Chemical crime and no punishment

Orwa Khalife 22 April 2020

Earlier this month, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced that its new Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) had completed

Helping Syria’s displaced prepare for Coronavirus

Al-Jumhuriya Collective 30 March 2020

With the decline in international NGO activity in Syria over the past two years, it has become necessary for local civil and youth

On quitting coffee

Alex Rowell 27 March 2020

After a high blood pressure diagnosis, Al-Jumhuriya’s English editor did the unthinkable: he stopped drinking coffee. What followed was weeks of physical, mental, even spiritual torment.

COVID-19 in Syria: The disaster waiting to happen

Al-Jumhuriya Collective 17 March 2020

On Monday, the World Health Organization’s emergency director for the Middle East, Dr. Rick Brennan, declared the organization would begin testing for COVID-19,

Ariha: An ancient Syrian town emptied and destroyed

Fatima Hajj Musa 3 February 2020

[Editor’s note: This article was originally published in Arabic on 3 February, 2020. Since that date, the city of Saraqeb and its surroundings

Lebanon’s new government can’t shoot its problems away

Al-Jumhuriya Collective 27 January 2020

During the handover ceremony at Lebanon’s interior ministry last Thursday, incoming Interior Minister Brig. Gen. Mohammed Fahmi declared he would not permit “attacks

Fields of destruction: Assad’s cluster munitions crimes

Mustafa Abu Shams 16 January 2020

Last Wednesday, an elementary school in the north Syrian city of Sarmin was struck with cluster munitions, killing three pupils along with five

Soleimani in Syria: A legacy of death and devastation

Al-Jumhuriya Collective 6 January 2020

In many ways, the life of Qassem Soleimani—the immensely powerful Iranian operative killed by a US Reaper drone near Baghdad airport on 3

Syrians under airstrikes: You’ve got email

Sadek Abdul Rahman 24 December 2019

This morning, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) sent an email to various NGOs working in northern Syria’s Idlib

When money disappears

Alex Rowell 4 December 2019

Notes on life without cash in Lebanon.

The return to Martyrs Square: An interview with Michael Young

Alex Rowell 12 November 2019

Al-Jumhuriya talks to veteran Lebanese journalist Michael Young about the parallels and distinctions between today’s mass protests in Lebanon and the 2005 “Cedar Revolution.”

A festival of inanity

Orwa Khalife 4 November 2019

Last Wednesday, the Syrian “Constitutional Committee” gathered for the first time to hold its inaugural meeting in Geneva. After an opening statement by

Lebanon’s uprising, between hope and hard truths

Alex Rowell 24 October 2019

It’s never easy to be optimistic about Lebanon, but the uprising of the past week offers a real chance for lasting change—if the protest movement plays its cards well.

Letters to Samira (14)

Yassin Al-Haj Saleh 19 October 2019

With your abduction and disappearance for more than six years now, I have experienced the worst that any man can experience. It has

Terror, genocide, and the “genocratic” turn

Yassin Al-Haj Saleh 19 September 2019

[Editor’s note: The below is an edited version of a talk given by the author in Paris on 4 September. An extended version

North Syria’s displaced pay to sleep under trees

Al-Jumhuriya Collective 26 August 2019

The bombing campaign waged in northern Syria by the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian allies between late April and 18 August

Empty stomachs for Syria

Mosab Al Nomairy 7 July 2019

For Syrians, each passing day seems worse than the one before it. The more regional and international forces shape affairs in the country,

The days of Abd al-Basit

Al-Jumhuriya Collective 13 June 2019

The mourning over the loss of Abd al-Basit Sarout, the larger-than-life Syrian opposition figure killed fighting Assad regime forces earlier this month, has

Confirming the worst

Alex Rowell 30 May 2019

An essential new book by the only international journalist to have lived full-time in Damascus post-2011 shows the Assad regime’s criminality to be even worse than previously understood.

The blood of Idlib’s people speaks

Al-Jumhuriya Collective 30 May 2019

It isn’t true that victory for the Assad regime is an inescapable certainty. It has never been true since the start of the

Letters to Samira (13)

Yassin Al-Haj Saleh 7 March 2019

Sammour, I’ve written to you before about unpleasant things; happenings that shouldn’t have happened, and a world whose horizons have become dimmer in

The constitutional con job

Sadek Abdul Rahman 13 February 2019

In recent days, a leaked list emerged online purporting to name the members of a committee set up with UN backing, and the

Letters to Samira (12)

Yassin Al-Haj Saleh 1 February 2019

The only day I’ve ever celebrated since your disappearance has been your birthday. I spend it, alone, with you. For weeks leading up

Suffocating in south Lebanon

Walaa Saleh 23 January 2019

To walk the streets of south Lebanon is to smell the Palestinian orchards nearby, and to sense the weight of the long years

Language and sexuality

Nayla Mansour 28 November 2018

[Editor’s note: This article is part of Al-Jumhuriya’s “Gender, Sexuality, and Power” series. It was also published in Arabic on 29 November, 2018.]

In memoriam: Raed Fares and Hammud Junayd, giants of Syrian civil society

Mustafa Abu Shams 25 November 2018

In Aleppo in early 2012, at a discussion between opposition activists, the banners used in demonstrations in a small town called Kafranbel were

Samer Foz, Assad’s new favorite handyman

Orwa Khalife 19 November 2018

How do you kill a man in Turkey and get out of prison? Do business with both Islamic State jihadists and the Kurds?

I, the “abnormal”

Raeef Al-Shalaby 15 November 2018

[Editor’s note: This article is part of Al-Jumhuriya’s “Gender, Sexuality, and Power” series. It was originally published in Arabic on 15 November, 2018.]

Gender, sexuality, power

Karam Nachar 7 November 2018

On October 20th of this year, a young Syrian woman named Rasha Bassis was murdered by her brother over her alleged relationship with

Between universalism and narrow culturalism: An interview with Tunisian historian Sophie Bessis

Nayla Mansour 1 November 2018

[Editor’s note: This article is part of Al-Jumhuriya’s new “Gender, Sexuality, and Power” series. It was originally published in Arabic on 8 November,

Syria’s Rukban camp, where the world perpetuates a catastrophe

Sadek Abdul Rahman 31 October 2018

The recent videos coming out of the Rukban camp for internally displaced Syrians at the extreme northeastern tip of the Jordanian-Syrian border send

The curious case of Idlib’s “extremists”

Orwa Khalife 15 October 2018

Ever since Turkey and Russia reached an agreement in the city of Sochi last month on averting a military offensive in Syria’s Idlib,

Jamal Khashoggi humanizes Saudi’s victims

Alex Rowell 11 October 2018

The disappearance and possible murder of the Saudi Arabian writer has struck such a nerve because, for a change, Westerners are able to see themselves in the victim’s shoes.

An update on the Douma Four

Yassin Al-Haj Saleh 3 October 2018

Earlier this year, between the summer and fall, I spent several months in Turkey following up on the case of the “Douma Four”

What’s in a (Friday) name

Mustafa Abu Shams 25 September 2018

Ever since the Egyptian “Friday of Rage” on January 28, 2011, the Arab Spring revolutions in general—and the Syrian revolution in particular—were distinguished

Israel’s air war in Syria: No danger to Assad

Al-Jumhuriya Collective 19 September 2018

The Israeli air force targeted a number of sites in Latakia Governorate late Monday night, chief among them a warehouse linked to the

The Bibi boom

Alex Rowell 12 September 2018

A new biography lays bare the extremist ideology that drives Benjamin Netanyahu, an early champion of the demagoguery that has now brought us his old friend, Donald Trump.