We’re not the first to realize that t-shirts are a great way to raise awareness about causes. We wanted to make fun shirts that deliver the message of coexistence without being tedious. We hope you like it! Let us know what you think in the comment section.

You can buy the shirts here.

Writing on the shirt:

RT @Bahaullah RT @ProphetMuhammad RT @Jesus RT @Moses Love Thy Neighbor!

about 250 years ago from Town Square

Since 2006, Mideast Youth has been working nonstop on human rights campaigns in the Middle East. We started out with one site and a series of ideas, but soon expanded into a solid network of a dozen websites with growing influence. Some of our best efforts can be seen here. We know that many people rely on our reports and material which we spend hours each day gathering, analyzing, protesting, etc. Anything from Baha’i rights to migrant rights, we do our best to stay on top of things while we tackle grave issues as creatively as possible with animated videos, social media campaigns, music, Google maps, timelines, comics, etc.

We have an awesome team of tireless, fearless activists and students who volunteer every single day in order to achieve stuff like this (a list of our 2009 accomplishments.) We don’t and won’t stop, because we know that our own future tomorrow depends on our efforts today.

Pulling off another successful year is a goal we must achieve, but we’re not sure we can do it without you. Aside from our tough work which requires a lot of our time, attention and energy, we also voluntarily support other initiatives and websites in the Middle East and North Africa by hosting (and occasionally designing/developing) their sites for free. That doesn’t only require time, which we’re happy to volunteer, but it also requires money. Servers, unfortunately, aren’t free. And the more we and the partners whom we host grow, the more expensive it gets – and we need your help to ensure that our services to them will remain free and that hosting our own sites will always be affordable.

In short: We need your help. If you like our work, appreciate our efforts, find our information useful or otherwise just think we generally rock, please take a minute to help out by donating. Every dollar counts.

We figured if Jimmy Wales could raise 7 million dollars on Wikipedia, we could at least meet our 5 thousand dollar limit considering the hard work and many sacrifices we make to make our work possible and accessible. We know a lot of people rely on our websites, and we need to keep running! You can help us.

Please forward this message to your family and friends and let them know that we need them.

We’re starting off the year with a new podcast, and this time with Marwan Kamel, lead singer of the punk Middle Eastern band “Al Thawra.” I could try my luck writing my own introduction of this awesome band, but I wouldn’t be able to top my friend Daniela who wrote about them on Mideast Youth a few months ago, so I’m just going to paste hers:

Marwan Kamel is a son of Syrian father and a Polish mother, and grew up in Chicago. The beginnings of Al Thawra date to 2006 or 2007, when Marwan started experimenting with music on his computer. He calls it “me and my computer phase.” He was trying to mix Middle Eastern music with punk and metal, trying to find commonalities, and differences. [Read more.]

In this podcast, Marwan talks about his background, influences, issues of identity, and a lot of things in between.

Before you read the rest of this post, take a listen to the podcast, which you will find at the bottom.

This is one of their music videos, Miskeen, best described by Daniela as the following:

Al Thawra music carries many other political themes, their song Miskeen, which means “someone who is doomed (or followed by bad fortune), comments on the situation in Gaza. It starts with a young Palestinian girl, reciting a sort of political protest poem, saying “we are the revolution,” the heirs of Salah ad-Din…. while the video shows dark streets of Chicago, public transport scene, and Al Thawra band members, with grim and somber expressions, as if reflecting the gloomy mood stemming from the incomprehensible and pointless oppression, regardless where it takes place.

You may also stream the following songs:

Gaza Choking:

Download.

A Las Cinco:

Download.

For more of their music, photos, and information, check out their MySpace page. You should also follow them on Twitter @althawra.

Mideast Youth is extraordinarily open to criticism and feedback. We aim to constantly adjust, adapt, and evolve based on the commentary we receive. But there are a few points of criticism which come up again and again. We’d like to address them here.

First, there’s the question of how we go about choosing issues and projects to take on. People sometimes make unfair assumptions about our selection process, complaining that we are off-handed, or even out-and-out biased, in our choices.

Here’s the main question we ask ourselves when considering whether to take on a project: how far under the radar is this issue? The thing is, we’re Mideast Youth, not Mideast Powerful Middle-Aged Royals. We don’t have the power to raise tons of money, pull lots of strings, or otherwise make things happen. We unfortunately can’t be “Superman to the rescue” for victims of injustice or persecution.

At least not yet!

For now, we’ve found that we’re pretty good at one single thing: finding underreported causes and using our new media skills to whip up thoughtful, highly creative ways of getting the word out. It may not seem like much, but that’s how we’re able to help from our small position in the scheme of things.

We understand – and share! – feelings of frustration that, with so many bad things going on, we’re “not doing enough.” We also understand there’s no moral way to determine that one group’s suffering is less worthy of our efforts than another’s! The main thing is that we always look for causes others ignore. Unfortunately, that can give the false impression we’ve invested our energies on relatively low-priority issues while ignoring important ones.

One example is our project for Baha’i Human Rights. The persecution of Baha’is in modern times has, one might note, resulted in a “mere” 200 deaths over three decades. Such numbers pale in comparison to other persecutions. But it’s precisely because this situation has been shunted off as “minor” that we feel compelled to help!

Consider the larger issue. Iran has abandoned mass executions while simultaneously adopting more insidious forms of persecution. One execution is likely to garner more attention than the systematic expulsion of hundreds of Baha’i students from universities. Realizing that “softer” methods of persecution garner little attention, the authorities act without fear of repercussions. That’s where we come in! We know how to draw attention to under-radar patterns of injustice.

We can’t possibly launch campaigns for every important issue. We’re young people operating with limited means and manpower. So we pick and choose. We work angles others neglect. Our inability to help everyone shouldn’t invalidate our efforts to help anyone!

But here’s the thing. If you feel we’re ignoring something critically important, channel your concern into championing the cause yourself! Get in touch with us; we’ll host you and develop your site for free. We’ll try to help you set up a campaign and provide any assistance we can! Don’t observe us passively, like a television channel, complaining about the programming! Join in. Be a programmer yourself. Take action. Your time and sweat are way more valuable than your back-seat driving.

One last thing: we request that you please not charge in demanding that we apologize for every crime carried out by an Arab/Muslim/etc. We feel the same despair you do about this violent world. And we ask you to be reasonable enough to understand that when some violent lunatic commits heinous crimes in the name of our billion and a half co-religionists, he has neither asked for nor received approval from the rest of us! Requiring us to constantly apologize for lunatics is embarrassing, insulting, and upsetting, so we ask that you be considerate of our feelings – unless, that is, you yourself have personally apologized for every injustice ever perpetrated by anyone who looks like you, worships like you, or is from a hometown near you.

That said, not everyone behind Mideast Youth is an Arab or a Muslim. Many of our members are also Kurds, Baha’is, Iranians, Christians, Israelis, etc.

Again: keep the feedback flowing… especially now that you better understand where we’re coming from!

Meklit Hadero, an Ethiopian-born musician and 2009 TEDGlobal Fellow, sings a very moving song in support of Kareem:

Thank you so much Meklit! If you’re on Twitter, please take a moment to send a personal shout out to Meklit @meklithadero for joining the struggle to free Kareem Amer.

2009 was a big year for us. We at Mideast Youth worked really hard throughout the year and as a result managed to release a lot of new or improved projects and experimental applications. I can’t possibly list everything here, and one of our editors will soon make a seperate list of our best content for 2009, but for now, here are some highlights of our achievements this year:

• Minority map which locates and provides basic stats and information about ethnic and religious minorities throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Minority Map

• Free Kareem WordPress Plugin: a plugin which generates a customizable widget containing information about imprisoned Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer.

• Relaunched Free Kareem website.

Free Kareem Campaign

• Mideast Youth Arabic was founded.

Mideast Youth Arabic

• Mideast Youth Farsi was founded.

Mideast Youth Farsi

• Started our first Twitter account: @MideastYouth, and a mere few months later it got listed in JTA’s 100 Most Influential Twitterers list, with the description:
  

  Neither Jewish nor Israeli in character, this project appears to be re-shaping discussion about the Middle East among global youth.

• Launched Mideast Tweets, got a nod of approval from Twitter founder noting that it’s “very cool!”

Mideast Tweets

• Expanded our social media presence.

• Released Facebook application.

• Released Mideast Youth Arabic Facebook application.

• Launched iPhone application.

Middle Eastern social networking on your iPhone

• Relaunched BahaiRights.org with a new design and a #BahaiRights Twitter map. Our timeline of Baha’i persecution in Iran since 1979 was viewed almost 40,000 times.

Baha'i Rights Website

• Relaunched Migrant Rights, with almost daily updates now, being frequently referenced on Twitter and on mainstream news.

Migrant Rights

• Our Persepolis video for Baha’i Rights wins 2nd prize in the Politicool category at the Bitfilm Festival. Mideast Youth partners with Bitfilm Festival, having inspired the Politicool category at the re:publica09 event in Berlin where 3 of our videos were displayed.

• Released a new animated video: United for Baha’i Rights
  

  Click here to view the embedded video.

  
  This video was selected to be shown in the Dawn Breakers International Film Festival, held in Zurich.

• Launched Postcards for Iran. Sent 812 postcards from around the world to Iranian prisoners and government officials.

Postcards for Iran

• Launched The March 18 Movement.

The March 18 Movement

• Released first video (animated short) for The March 18 Movement:
  

  Click here to view the embedded video.

• March 18 Movement wins Think Social Award.

• Won 2009 Echoing Green Fellowship.

• Won 2009 TED Fellowship.

Mideast Youth recognized in TEDGlobal

• Released icon design package for human rights.

Icon design package for human rights

• Ability to add Mideast Youth headlines to your website.

• Launched alkasir, circumvention software, in beta with Yemeni developer Walid al-Saqaf. Over 10,000 people downloaded the software and a full-featured version will be launched early next year!

alkasir for circumventing censorship

• Widget generator for imprisoned activists and bloggers. Here is a recent example that displays how it’s put to use:

Example of widget generator

• Mideast Youth Mobile.

• Launched Israelis for Palestine: A collection of Israeli organizations, individuals, activists and free thinkers, dedicated each in their own way to oppose the oppression of Palestinians.

Israelis for Palestine

• Launched the Arab Association for Kurdish Rights.

Arab Association for Kurdish Rights

• Relaunched Kurdish Rights.

Alliance for Kurdish Rights

• Released directory of Kurdish victims: Documenting the cases of Kurdish men, women, and children who were imprisoned, unjustly killed, or forcibly disappeared for their ethnicity.

Directory of Kurdish victims

• Released Facebook application of Kurdish victims directory.

• Released new animation: Stand up for Kurdish Rights
  

  Click here to view the embedded video.

• Released Mideast Youth BlackBerry Application. Try the VERY Beta release here.

Mideast Berry

• We’re now hosting over 150 websites (at least 60 of which we also developed and designed) for free to help activists, journalists, musicians and film makers across the region be visibly heard.

• Press coverage on CNN, BBC, LA Times and more.

So much more is pending that we can’t wait to launch in the coming months!

Of course, none of which would be possible without the Mideast Youth team itself, namely: Fatima, Kawthar, Ahmed, Ali, Vahid, Daniela, and more recently Eva and Misha. All of us are volunteers doing this in our own time, so pulling this off is a huge deal to all of us.

Last but not least, our many authors and a whole bunch of volunteers who helped us pull off our projects.

Maziar Bahari, an Iranian Canadian journalist and documentary filmmaker who was arrested without charge during the Iranian election protests in June, thanks supporters everywhere who campaigned for his release on Twitter, Facebook, and through diplomatic relations which all contributed to his eventual freedom. Below is a video taken by our partners, Highest Common Denominator Media Group, where Maziar speaks to his supporters:

We sincerely hope that other innocent journalists, bloggers, and activists currently suffering in Iranian prisons will soon be free. Please do not forget them.

Dear friends,

The last couple of weeks have been quite busy for the Alliance for Kurdish Rights campaign, one of our earliest projects. Aside from a complete redesign of our website, we just launched our latest video, which we’ve worked very hard on:

We hope you can take this opportunity to spread the word.

We have also just released a directory of Kurdish victims throughout the Middle East. This comes with its own Facebook application which we encourage you to install. You may read more about this here.

Thank you all, and your help in spreading the word would be highly appreciated.

Haroon R. Abu Arra is a 23 year old born in Aqqaba, Palestine. He studied in Aqqaba until he reached secondary school where he left to Jenin to work in a TV and radio station where he requested to become a broadcaster. He started preparing for his first program called “Qethart Al Layel,” a music and poetry show where young people talk about relationship problems. He remained in the program for 6 months before leaving to Ramallah. From there, he started to act upon his dream: to start his own radio station. And that wasn’t just for the sake of having any radio station. He wanted his station to be different, unique, something that makes a difference in people’s lives, in how people communicate with each other.

Haroon was upset with Palestine’s unprofessional radio stations, where the aim was to collect revenues from advertisers. He figured the media there was rather dead primarily for this purpose. There wasn’t enough passion, his “dream” radio station wasn’t in existence in any form. That’s when he decided to create it himself.

Haroon in the studio.

I have a chat with Haroon to learn more about his initiative. Below is a brief interview:

Q: What is Rofto radio?
A: The “R” stands for “Radio,” and the other letters stand for “Of the others.” It’s an abbreviation for “Radio Of The Others.”

Q: When did you establish it?
It was established on the 21st of May 2009, during my birthday.

Q. How did you come up with the idea, and what inspired you?
I’ve had this idea for a while. The main reason is the unprofessional stations that we have in our occupied country, and the poor media. This made me want to fight and become a cultural fighter of sorts, for freedom of speech, freedom of life, and human rights regardless of religion, language, or ethnicity.

Q. What do you hope to achieve with Rofto radio?
I hope to have the biggest media outlet for youth in the world. They have the humanity inside them and they believe that we are the same, all humans. Then I hope to have the first internet radio station in the world with all the global languages, nationalities and religions, to make the main revolution in the world a “revolution of humanity,” living together, respect. No war, no blood, no checkpoints between us. Just humanity, peace, and love.

Rofto Logo.

Q. How many people are participating in this initiative so far?
Not as many as I dream of, I’m the general project manager, and we have a good team in Indonesia, Germany, the Netherlands, and a large team in Palestine. We also have a presence in Japan, Scotland, and Canada, more to come soon.

Q. How would you explain your web portal currently, is it just radio or will there be videos and articles featured as well?
Rofto’s website will be a place for videos, articles, radio, news, discussions and dialogue, with many teams from around the world making it possible.

Q. In how many languages do you wish to operate?
I wish that there was one language in the world to make things easier but I will have to try my best to have our programs available in as many languages as possible.

Q. Did you already begin recording some programs and if so, what are they about?
Not yet, our website is still under construction. I tried many times to have someone design this website and to turn it into what we envision, a place to have videos, audio, articles and discussions. No one was able to help me. I wish after now you’ll know and we’ll find someone to help us achieve that.

Q. Why do you think people should join this cause?
I think people should join this project for one reason, they’re humans and this is a humanity project.

Q. Finally if you have anything you wish to add, please let us know.
I want to say that I’d like to invite everyone who sees themselves taking part ofo ur team, we need project managers from all over the world. We need your support to build this radio and start podcasting soon. Make our dream to build Rofto as the sign of peace and love.

To stay in touch with Rofto, join their group on Facebook. Thank you Haroon for taking the time to tell us more about your great initiative which we wish you much luck with. Concerning your website, I can assure you that we’ll do our best to support you with it. It’s important that projects like yours are successful and influential amongst youth in this region and beyond.

This is what the United 4 Iran movement has in storage for tomorrow: “a day devoted to worldwide displays of musical, visual, and performing arts highlighting the issues of human rights in Iran.”

We are proud to be collaborating with United 4 Iran on this project alongside Shahrzad Dance Company, Kala Art Institute, Design Action Collective, Ballet Afsaneh amongst several others. United 4 Iran spent tireless weeks putting this together, and you can be sure that their efforts will pay off, if you take a look at the extensive list of key participants who are getting involved.

12/12 Arts United for Iran Worldwide Event Poster

The goals for this event are quite ambitious:

12/12 Goals

To continue standing in solidarity with all Iranian artists, activists, students, and concerned citizens fighting for their human and civil rights.

To increase public awareness regarding the continuing civil rights movement in Iran and the continuous human and civil rights violations in Iran.

To let the government of Iran know that we are still watching and will not tolerate the abuses.

To engage new partners and artists in support of civil and human rights in Iran.

To connect communities around the world working to support our brothers and sisters in Iran.

To build capacity in putting on events and building alliances.

Where is this all happening? Take a look at the locations here:

View 12-12 Events & Supporters in a larger map

This is the largest day of its kind for Iran and we sure do hope that you’ll be getting involved!

It’s a great pleasure to introduce to you our latest project: Israelis for Palestine. This has been in the works since the beginning of October and we’re happy to finally be launching it, despite the fact that it’s still very much in its early stages. To find out what it’s all about, a simple visit to the site will reveal a great little intro.

This project was inspired by the work and activism of our Israeli author Eva, and contributors will include Israelis and Jews who work in favor of Palestinian human rights and justice. Currently, the site only aims to track down Israeli and Jewish organizations and activists doing such work, but Arabs and others are more than welcome to spread the word or participate by leaving comments on the blog posts, podcasts, and eventually videos.

For news and updates, you may follow @ifplaestine on Twitter.

Eva is currently in charge of leading this effort. If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with her.

United4Iran is a nonprofit startup whose mission is to “promote fundamental human and civil rights in Iran.” In this podcast, I speak with the organization’s founder, Firuzeh Mahmoudi, and 2 of the organization’s volunteers, Tori Egherman and Kamran Ashtary. We first talk generally about United4Iran as an initiative, and then move on to how they’re using social media to mobilize millions of people on the web, and whether rallies around the world and media coverage can actually change anything (hint: it may not seem obvious, but yes it can.)

Most of us at Mideast Youth wholeheartedly support this project and can’t wait to start collaborating with them in the near future.

In the meantime, here is the podcast.

Today, I read a rather thought-provoking article at TechCrunch by Paul Carr. I encourage you to read it first before continuing with this post. Paul’s article reminded me of an incident that most of us can never forget: the stoning of Du’a Khalil Aswad, which you can read about here. Videos and photos of her being stoned were viewed millions of times, but few of those times did people notice the troubling fact that not a single man from the dozens of people who were filming the incident came to her aid, or uttered a word in her favor while the crowd was shouting “kill her, kill her!”

Some watched, and let it happen, others filmed it, but no one helped her. She just layed there, getting stoned, and eventually died from those wounds, while people went home to upload the video into YouTube (and was that to help her, or to get more subscribers?)

I’m not here to question the intentions of those who took videos, but instead I wish to raise a discussion about Paul Carr’s point. Are there any red lines in social media?

When taking a video of an incident like this, it can be so effective and helpful beyond what most people expect. For example, Du’a’s video alone did wonders to the activist movements dedicated to eliminating honor crimes and helping victims at risk. If no one had taken that video, Du’a would be largely unknown, amongst the millions of victims whose stories are to this day unexposed or forgotten, and there would be no major outcry calling for justice and an end to honor crimes.

That is the positive side of sharing the video: the awareness it raises, the level of activism it can inspire, and eventually the action it can lead to.

The negative side is what was implied earlier: the fact that these people filmed her, but no one stepped in and at least attempted to save her life. How did she feel? How would you feel? If you were getting stoned and all you can see in your last moments of life, is people pointing their mobile phones at you, snapping away at your death, without helping, without stopping anyone from attacking you?

To try and define your stance on the responsibility of using social media, the question to ask yourself is this – which would you be most disgusted by when watching this video?

1) The fact that a young girl was getting brutally stoned to death?
2) The fact that no one from the huge crowd attempted to help her?

What in your opinion is more terrifying?

I am in favor of documenting these incidents, and definitely in favor of using social media for causes like these. But we need limits. What are they? Where is our humanity indeed when “sharing” comes before taking action in an urgent situation, when someone’s life is at serious risk?

I think Paul used the wrong example in his article when concluding it with the video of Neda Agha Soltan’s tragic death, requesting to know why the person opted to take a video instead of helping her. I agree with what this commenter correctly pointed out, and conclude that the person who shot the video didn’t necessarily do anything wrong:

People were crowded around her trying to help. Entering the equation would actually be not helpful (read: hurting) in that case, unless the camera person can push everyone aside and perform ‘magic powers’ on her. The camera served to capture critical events that informed people in the outside world — outside the gates of Iran’s media lockdown — of reality. People should be praising the camera person, who, in fact, helped a lot.

This I can agree with. No lines were crossed here, in my opinion. There was nothing the person can do except to make the world aware of the grave injustice that took place.

But, what about Du’a? No one was crowding her to help. People crowded her either to watch, take videos, or to simply join the violence and stone her themselves.

Personally, I think that’s where the red line is.

A few months ago, Rasha from Saudi Arabia posted a poem she wrote here called “In the Moment.” She posted it simply to share it with other readers, not realizing some of the impact it would eventually have. About a month later, Rasha got this message:

My name is Malte, I am the editor of the international children’s radio station Radijojo based in Berlin. We would like to voice your beautiful poem “In the moment” in some youth radio workshops.

Of course, the idea excited us. This sounded like a great opportunity for a useful cultural exchange, which Rasha recently wrote about here.

Malte informed us that the poem was read by several 14 year old youngsters. They had a Radijojo radio Workshop about the relationship between Germany and Arab countries, where they mainly spoke about the content of Rasha’s poem. You can listen to the audio here.

Some photos of the workshop and students reading Rasha’s poem:

I think this is proof that new media can really have an impact on how people view and communicate with each other between areas where it doesn’t typically happen. Previously, teachers or instructors only had text to rely on in order to teach young students about global affairs, religion, or foreign cultures. This is one of many examples that showed how this is no longer the case, and that we have great tools to break barriers and stereotypes often enforced by mainstream media outlets. Now students can directly get in touch with other students in different parts of the world in order to hear from our own perspectives, what is happening and what we feel about it, what our culture is like, how we practice our faith, and what we feel about the current state of our societies.

Another example is the teleconferences we occassionally have with high school students in the USA. These were documented by the Skype blog as well which said:

“It’s satisfying to see young people use the Web, and Skype, to strive toward understanding across barriers not of their own making. This particular initiative won’t bring about change on its own, but even a marathon consists of lots of little steps.”

When Rasha published that poem, she had no idea how inspirational it would be to people elsewhere, and what others will be doing with it. This outreach has been inspiational for us here too, knowing that the simple act of sharing our thoughts can end up making a big difference in terms of making people truly aware of who we are and what we represent.

We want to thank Malte for reaching out, the young students in Berlin who did a great job reciting the poem, and everyone who has ever been interested in our opinions and our lives. Participating in this site to me personally has been an educational experience and we hope that others feel the same. I have learned so much about others by speaking with them, and the amazing video/audio technologies we have today make this exchange much more effective. Thanks indeed to everyone involved.

I recently got a chance to interview a young Bahraini entrepreneur Reem Al-Khalifa, who founded her own company, Green Bar Inc. in 2006. Green Bar products include oils and moisturizers, all made from natural ingredients. Reem makes sure to use local ingredients as well to promote what the region offers in terms of nature.

First, can you give us a brief introduction about yourself?
I studied art and visual communications but wasn’t satisfied, I felt I needed expression with my senses a little bit more. Then through my yoga practice I was able to accept and be more aware of my love for herbs, and gave them my attention, even though they seemed like a distraction to my family and friends. I was attracted to plants and what they offer, fragrance, flavor and therapy.

What is Green Bar?
Green Bar is my plant essence bar where I make my natural perfumes. I believed in oils for a very long time, but thought it ridiculous… and forgot about it because I was too lazy to look for proof. Then through my personal studies on Ayurveda which is the Indian health/medical compliment to yoga, I realized that yes oils are used for healing and my investigation started from there.

Green Bar oils

What made you think about creating this line of products?
It was because of my passion to upgrade life in the simplest form with the most authentic and pleasant ingredients.

Why did you decide to use regional ingredients?
We have very beautiful exotic ingredients that no one is celebrating. Just a little creativity and improvisation can go a long way. They are a form of my expression to celebrate the island.

What has been the reaction of people to this initiative, particularly in Bahrain?
Very positive. People have been very supportive, and also very curious about the oils.

Do you plan on expanding beyond Bahrain? Will this product be available region-wide? And where do you currently ship to?
It is available in retail stores in Bahrain, and available through the Internet worldwide.

What makes Green Bar products different than other herbal oils and moisturizers?
What makes it different is that I don’t approach it to treat you. I think everyone is just fine, all they need is a little lightheartedness, so even though it’s like a fragrant pharmacy with a lot of healing potential, I like to approach it for the beauty of each fragrance.

Do you feel that Bahrain has a friendly business environment for young entrepreneurs?
Yes it does. But one cant slack off on the follow-up. Everyone I have found is pretty happy to help. However, being an island follow up is very essential.

Finally, do you have anything else you wish to add?
Fixation leads to the best exploration. Follow your curiosities; the reason why a cat has 7 lives is because she gets many chances for having such a virtue… that’s what I believe at least. Everyone else just has one life.

Every once in a while I contact my friend Huma Imtiaz, a Pakistani journalist, for updates. You may remember her from this previous podcast. This time she’s here to let us know why these attacks are taking place, by whom, where, and what the government is doing about it (nothing, apparently.)

Huma blogs here. You are encouraged to subscribe to her RSS feed.

In this podcast, I speak with Nadia from Tunisia about relationships and the perception of sex in the Arab world. What is accepted, what isn’t, and what’s hypocritical about our current societies. This is an important discussion but still surprisingly a taboo in the MENA region. Amongst the things we discuss are: virginity, independence (specifically for women), families, marriage, and societal expectations.

Keep in mind that most of what’s in the podcast is a result of our observations and personal opinions. Regardless of whether or not you agree, we urge you to keep the conversation respectful.

Kareem is a young Egyptian blogger who was only 22 years old when he was sentenced to 4 years in prison by the Egyptian government for criticizing Islam and the President of Egypt on a personal blog. Kareem was threatened and harassed consistently for his writing, and was previously arrested prior to his sentence, all of which were attempts to silence his opinions which he should be free to express. He challenged the Egyptian government and the self-proclaimed “scholars” at the Al Azhar religious institution which he attended (and was eventually expelled from) by criticizing them and their policies. His latest arrest was on the 6th of November, 2006, and he has been in prison ever since that date. Months after that, while he was imprisoned without charges, he was formally sentenced to 4 years in prison on the 22nd of February, 2007, causing him to be the first blogger in the Arab world to be sentenced officially by a court for his blog.

Since the 6th of November, 2006, on the day of his arrest, I created FreeKareem.org to try and secure his release, and dozens of volunteers soon piled up to help out, making the campaign one of the most visible campaigns for a blogger in the world. Despite that, and the outrage expressed by thousands of people worldwide, including government officials and MPs who shamed Egypt and the Egyptian government for this gross human rights violation, the Egyptian authorities failed to acknowledge this mistake. We created many campaigns over the years to help keep the mainstream media interested in covering this story, knowing that this is what the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak is scared of most. We did this through worldwide simultaneous rallies which took place in at least 15 major cities around the world, the “Flood the Jail with Mail” campaign, other letter campaigns throughout the year, #FreeKareem Twitter days, creating Free Kareem events in schools and universities around the world, involving musicians and artists, and much more.

This certainly worked in terms of raising awareness and mainstream media attention, which went wild, everywhere from the Washington Post to Czech TV. Staff at the Egyptian consulates and embassies around all these countries were certainly aware and felt the pressure multiple times throughout every year. They heard us say: We are aware of the mistake the Egyptian government has caused and we are here until you CORRECT IT. They never did. 1080 days later and they never did.

Kareem shouldn’t be forgotten. He is not merely an example of what could go wrong for bloggers under oppressive regimes. He is a human being and my friend who deserves his freedom. Please help me free him, and communicate this message to the Egyptian government or journalists around the world, and perhaps to the U.S government that continues to fund this regime out of self-interest at the expense of basic human rights.

Kareem must be freed.

For more information please visit www.FreeKareem.org and do your part to spread the word. If you Tweet this news, please use the hashtag #FreeKareem.

For those of you that have downloaded our iPhone Application, you might notice that there is an update that was released today. You’re encouraged to ignore it. We noticed a few bugs that were overlooked and are now being currently fixed. We’ll be releasing a new build as soon as it’s done, and the update after this one should reflect that.

The update includes improved design and functionality, and having “MideastYouth” be a source for any tweets being made from within the application, such as in this screenshot below:

Overall the application has had some really nice reviews, but some complained of the fact that the app crashes once used excessively, or in the case of this latest build, once any feed is opened at all. Everything should be fixed and improved with the new build coming up.

Thanks to everyone who downloaded the app and many thanks for all your encouragement.

As for news about our Symbian phone application, we stopped its development due to the fact that we couldn’t figure out a way for it not to use an excess amount of data, making the app very expensive to use if not connected to a wireless connection. Many helped us test it and we all came to the conclusion that it wasn’t exactly necessary or usable. It was a failed experiment but one that needed to be explored anyways, so we don’t regret the time and effort we put into it (11 tough months, to be exact.)

However, due to popular demand, we now started developing for the BlackBerry device instead. It will be more or less a BlackBerry version of the iPhone one.

I was late to Twitter. It was the 23rd of December, 2008, when Mideast Youth first had its Twitter account. To be honest, I wasn’t excited to use this service, even though I realized its importance, and I knew it was absolutely vital for a growing network like ours to leverage its power. In many ways I think it helped us, specifically in terms of traffic and readership, so I don’t dismiss the service as entirely useless. Just mostly.

This is my Facebook status from yesterday:

Why I feel this way. Where do I start?

1) Because most people still use Twitter for what it was originally created for: Updates about the average person’s terribly mundane existance. Do you have the option to rule it out? Of course, by limiting your list to specific people/organizations you follow. But 1 in every 3 of those will abuse their access to Twitter by consistently tweeting about things that are so intolerably boring that it’s actually offensive they’d allow the rest of us to suffer through reading it. Because I often sit alone at night and wonder what your favorite color is, your favorite food, your sexual preference.

I tolerated this irritation for months, however, even though I felt myself getting dumber and with less of an attention span. I also found myself much less interested in thought provoking blog posts because it required more of an effort than reading about Ali’s wonderful sandwich, before spending 3 minutes staring at it on Twitpic.

2) A growing number of people think it’s useful to chat publicly on Twitter even as it gets more and more personal.

@shutup Hey did you read that article about that one bitch who hates MUSLIMS?

@shutthefuckup Yeah, that journalist is such a loser, who does she think she is?

@shutup If I had a chance to slap her face with a frozen trout, then believe me, I’d take it.

@shutthefuckup DUDE! I think of us sitting cross-legged, enlightened under the same tree. We’re so similar.

@shutup I’m so happy you’re on my Twitter, MAN!

@shutthefuckup Uh, dude, have my babies.

And of course, someone else in your list always has to butt in even if they have nothing of worth to say because TweetDeck was right there and they really, really need to use it NO MATTER WHAT:

@shutyourface Enjoyed conversation by @shutup @shutthefuckup will u accept me in ur social circle #letschataboutboringstuff

So Twitter updates itself and the chat lists grow like a tumor, and you’re wondering who you should unfollow first without “upsetting them,” an argument with yourself that takes no less than 3 minutes to resolve.

3) Even when your intention is to create a heated but thoughtful conversation, on Twitter any and all criticism makes people sound like abusive bigots. Example:

Dear journalist,

I read your article. Overall, it was well written, but I felt that you skewed some of the facts. You definitely have a grasp on the religious practices of the Aztecs, though throughout history they were grossly misunderstood and mislabeled as brutes because of one ritual practice: that of human sacrifice. The hatred and resentment this practice generated among others, lead to their downfall. It should be noted that the Aztecs had never participated in a violent war. Would you consider revisiting your article if we discuss this in further detail?

Fondly,
Someone who isn’t writing this on Twitter

Here is the same criticism. But in less than 140 characters and on Twitter:

@journalist I read your article. Leave the Aztects alone you dumb shit. u jus jealous.

4) The spreading of rumors. Twitter in many ways is dividing itself by clans. People A vs. People B in each issue, like the pro-LGBT, and anti-LGBT rights, or extremely pro Israel and extremely pro Palestine, etc. If something circulates that serves any group’s interests it would be RTed like no other, regardless of whether or not it’s true. There’s a huge chance that you witnessed something like this:

@Syria ATTN: @Iran has herpes PLZ RT!

@UAE RT @Syria ATTN: @Iran has herpes (RT THIS!!! EW Don’t go near them!!1)

@Bahrain RT @UAE RT @Syria ATTN: Iran has herpes, WE ALWAYS TOLD U SO #FUCKIRAN

@CIA @BarackObama check this out – @Iran has herpes (via @Syria @UAE)

@CNN @FoxNews CONFIRMED. THIS JUST IN: @IRAN HAS SEVERE CASE OF HERPES! #BOMBIRAN

And it just goes on and on? And then someone always is brave enough to send that one DM, when they’re not hiding behind obsessive RTs.

@Iran Do you have herpes? That’s pretty bad! Unfollowed. GET HELP.

Of course, this happens with any other service, and is especially true for blogging, but when it’s in 140 characters, it makes you want to decapitate baby lambs before slamming their heads into a refrigerator.

5) Whatever you tell yourself, hours of your precious time on Twitter goes to immediate waste. Sure, it saved all your “marketing” issues, and Twitter from afar seems HUGE, but most of the people you wish to address aren’t even on there and if they are, more than likely they missed 90% of your tweets because they were asleep, or at work, or on Facebook for the 15 minutes that you posted a link to your blog which they missed.

Wait, “ALL I do on Twitter is actual work, I increase awareness about stuff and things,” and yet you find yourself getting increasingly curious about what everyone is doing on Twitter all the time regardless of whether or not it’s relevant. The Jonas Brothers are a trending topic. AGAIN. And twice a day for the next 3 years. But you still absolutely have to see what’s up with those guys and you’ll click on it, if only to check whether or not someone managed to suffocate them with a pillow yet. Then, you will go back to Ali’s Twitpic sandwich because you can’t HELP but wonder whether that pink thing in it was, God forbid, HAM!

For me, when I really think about it, people on Twitter are turning into one big mass of sheep with no discerning personality features other than the fact that they like to “hug” a lot. And after a while it gets kind of uncomfortable to sit around and watch for no reason other than our apparent curiosity.

Twitter is great for sharing, but it leaves no real room for decent conversations, even though it can sometimes start great lasting ones. It’s common knowledge that it’s awesome for awareness, but only if you can tolerate the banquet of bullshit that comes with the service, which, for busy people, is generally not an option.

I’m done with Twitter, finally. All our Twitter accounts (@mideastyouth @MigrantRights @BahaiRights @KurdishRights @OR318 etc) are now in the hands of volunteers, overseen by Fatima. God help her.

PS: I actually advocate the usage of Twitter wholeheartedly, and the difference it can make to an individual or an organization is huge, hence why our members use it daily. You probably should, too, as long as you can discipline yourself and know your limits, and as long as you’re not guilty of any of these 5 things listed here. Aside from these primary reasons, I also stopped because I simply feel much more productive without it.

There’s an icon for each topic we cover, as you might see below. Download the package and let us know what you think! Hoping this will be useful. I sure know we’ll be making use of them across all our sites.

Edit: Because of the comments below, 3 icons have been added to the list. They are included now in the package once you download it.

Except no one’s laughing.

In fact, reading the extract confirms that this “novel” is more boring than assembly instruction manuals for particle board furniture.

David claims in an equally boring interview with himself (warning: reading it may cause you to throttle yourself)-

I know that there are Arab women who are intellectual and ‘free-thinking’, but I was never lucky enough to meet one.

Six years in the Gulf and not a single “intellectual” woman. Such “harmless” humor, indeed. Raises a lot of great points and contains:

He claims that he will try to get this thing he calls a “novel” translated into Arabic, but that he will have to find a person with a “broad mind.” Unfortunately in the Arab world he believes this to be an impossible mission. He could, however, find a woman with a broad ass though.

David, congratulations on being you. Not many people could carry the burden of being Britain’s social and intellectual elite with such aplomb and grace, let alone find the time to be so utterly condescending and arrogant. That is a feat beyond compare and I, for one, applaud you. You are so funny, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

This app gathers the best of all in a single location, whether you’re trying to see what people in FriendFeed are saying from Iran, Iraq, Syria, etc or whether you’re trying to connect with Twitter users in the Middle East, or trying to explore how Facebook is being used to spread awareness about various human rights abuses in the region – this app has it all!

The app is not yet available in the Apple store. We submitted it a week ago and it’s currently being reviewed, but we wish to spread the word for people to be aware of the app before downloading it on their device. The site we launched today gives you a pretty good idea of what you can expect. This was hard work, so please check it out and help us spread the word.

Don’t have an iPhone? Don’t worry. A symbian application is on the way!

We are a group of Arab and Iranian activists who believe in the independent struggle for human rights. We fight for religious freedom, freedom of speech, the rights of Baha’is, bloggers, Kurds, migrant workers, and all other religious or ethnic minorities. Our strength relies upon our credibility and independence from foreign influence. This statement is an effort to make that mission more visible to inspire other activists to take the same lead for the sake of their security, independence, success and credibility.

The U.S State Department is currently the largest funder of human rights work in the Middle East. The U.S government is also the funder of some of this region’s worst dictatorships. Therefore the intentions of such government funding of human rights activism in the Middle East remains unclear and questionable. We believe that the people genuinely interested in our human rights are ourselves and independent people around the world. This includes millions of passionate Americans who have taken an interest in the Middle East out of their own sense of justice, not as representatives of any governmental entity.

The U.S. State Department seems to offer funding to young human rights activists in exchange for a pro-USA approach in their work. Many regional activists are naive and are not sure what is in store for them when funding is considered. What they don’t anticipate are the strings attached: an overwhelming amount of censorship on topics such as criticism of U.S. foreign policy and in certain situations, Israel.

Such politically conditional funding is troubling for security reasons as well as ethical ones. With the exception of Israel, in almost all countries within the region any activist that is exposed to be backed heavily by the U.S State Department is punished by constant harassment, imprisonment or death. We ask that all foreign powers consider our lives and our human rights first, regardless of whether or not it fits their ideology or personal gains.

In our experience, some U.S.-based foundations dependent on the U.S. State Department for funding dismiss our wishes and demands to keep as far away from their influence as possible for credibility and security reasons. In one instance, Mideast Youth requested that a well-known human rights foundation that wanted to reprint a cartoon include a disclaimer disassociating Mideast Youth from its operations and affiliates. “Sadly,” wrote Mideast Youth, “[your foundation] and the money that is behind it has made activism efforts in the Middle East seem disingenuous due to its strong ties to political agendas. We are an independent grassroots organization that fights for every penny we have. We have a strong reputation for remaining above the politics and money…our name is our reputation.”

A senior manager at the foundation responded, “Thank you for your defamatory email. I suggest that you not fight for pennies, it violates the principle of non-violence and really is not worth the effort. We will definitely not be using your cartoon.” But most others continue to link to our material or try to imitate it. In several occasions, our names and projects are listed in sensitive campaigns without our approval, and staff of beneficiary foundations and organizations of the government of the United States are not willing to remove them.

As local and grassroots activists, we have a responsibility never to politicize our efforts for human rights and we want other governments to respect those wishes and agree not to interfere. When we criticize treatment of Baha’is in Iran, demand free speech throughout the region, defend Kurds, women’s rights, LGBT rights, or tackle any of the many other regional issues, the U.S. State Department and their primary financial recipients need to realize that they need to stop trying to exploit our efforts for the sake of political gain. We know what it takes to achieve our work, and unfortunately foreign involvement only makes our success less possible. When an article of ours is reprinted only to have a concluding statement critical of U.S. foreign policy censored without our permission, we feel that this is a violation of our basic right to self-expression by those claiming to want to help us achieve this goal.

Please understand our situation—the majority of us are based in countries where human rights activism backed by foreign entities is not tolerated and is grounds for imprisonment or execution. Please don’t take offense—we realize our own governments are oppressive, but there are elements of this kind of influence that must be exposed and corrected. Please don’t misunderstand us—do not confuse the U.S government with average American citizens whose support we benefit from and admire.

We realize that not all staff of the U.S. State Department and its funded projects are misleading. Many sincerely care about human rights and wish the best for all of us, and we are grateful for their interest in our freedom. However, our concern for our lives must be expressed. These individuals must help their government respect independent activists. When we refuse to be associated with foreign politics it is never due to racism or hatred. It is due to security and most importantly, the honesty represented within our efforts. We are not advocates for any government and take offense when our work is made to appear as such.

Make no mistake – we activists are aching for human rights. But most of us will always remain firm against foreign involvement in our affairs. These are our countries, and the only political demands we wish to make are our own. We expect people to respect us as human beings and not as political figures to be taken advantage of for the sake of self-important gains of any Arab government, Iran, the USA, Israel, or any other foreign power. Our fight for human rights needs to transcend the interests of these political entities.

We realize that the U.S State Department funds multiple other fields irrelevant to activism or politics. We don’t disregard anything good they have helped create in the fields of education and health care. We ask that the U.S. State Department focus its efforts in fields other than human rights. We believe that another step forward is to stop funding oppressive powers in the region, namely Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel.

We welcome and appreciate the support offered to us by American citizens and non-political organizations in the U.S. We ask that they continue standing with us in our struggles, as their support is extremely valuable. But please stop using us as a front for politics. We get enough of that from our own governments, and we are against foreign occupation. Our members in Iraq and Palestine can attest to that.

We conducted an interview with Foad a few months ago where he introduced himself as the following:

My name is Foad. I was born in one of the little towns of the Mazandaran province, which is located in Northern Iran in June 1987 (month of Khordad, year 1366 according to the Iranian calendar), but I was brought up in Tehran. Due to the numerous problems Baha’is face in furthering their education in Iran, I took refuge in Turkey when I was 16, and at the moment I am a student of electrical engineering in the USA. From the early years of my childhood, I have adored Iranian traditional music, and I play Persian musical instruments. However, at the moment I find that the Rap genre is best suited for me to express my inner feelings. My efforts are mostly focused on addressing the problems of religious and ethnic minorities – especially the Baha’is – through my songs.

We had sent a copy of the video to Foad, and he liked it enough to remix the music and add relevant vocals to the background. The result is amazing and you may listen to it here:

You may download the audio here.

If you would like to find out more about him, please read this interview.