Middle East and North Africa
Social Media Exchange (SMEX) is a registered Lebanese NGO that works to advance self-regulating information societies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Its work encompasses media development programmes as well as internet policy research and digital rights advocacy in support of more accessible, participatory and just enabling environments for civil society across the MENA region. While it engages globally, Lebanon is its home, making Arab society and culture its primary context for...
Muavin is a concept developed by Media Matters for Democracy (MMfD); a digital tool to help push back on cyberbullying, harassment and online violence, especially targeted at vulnerable groups.
Social Media Exchange (SMEX) is a registered Lebanese NGO that works to advance self-regulating information societies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). APCNews interviewed Jessica Dheere and Mohamad Najem, the co-directors of SMEX, which just joined the APC network.
With the annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) kicking off this week in Guadalajara, Mexico, we developed a guide for participants from the Middle East and North Africa, identifying sessions on themes relevant in the region: human rights, security, trade, and the internet economy.
[img_assist|nid=22169|title=Group photo at the IGMENA Summit. Tunis, 2nd October 2016.
Mohammed Maskati at IGMENA, Tunis. 2 October 2016. Photo by Leila Nachawati Rego Mohammed al-Maskati is a renowned Bahraini human rights defender and founder of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights. He works as a digital security consultant for Front Line Defenders, a human rights organisation founded in 2001 to protect human rights defenders at risk. He has worked with a diversity of int...
Together for a free and open internet is the motto for this year’s IGMENA Summit, an event bringing together more than a hundred digital rights activists, human rights defenders, journalists and other stakeholders around internet rights and internet governance in the Middle East and North Africa, between 30 September and 2 October in Tunis.
This issue paper links challenges to civil participation in internet governance in the Middle East and North Africa and the state of internet rights in the region with civil society advocacy strategies, as well as providing some recommendations, with a focus on Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon.
During the “Arab Spring” of 2011, the internet was a space for mobilisation. Despite the increasing sophistication of persecution, the efforts to defend human rights, both online and offline, have not ceased.
This research aims to highlight the links between the efforts of digital security trainings in the Arab region with the human rights realities, focusing on Morocco and Palestine. It is part of APC’s project Building a culture of online human rights and digital security in the Maghreb-Machrek region.

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