Efforts Continue to Free Guardian Reporter
THE GUARDIAN: Amnesty International has added to the calls for the Libyan authorities to release Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

Intensive efforts are continuing to persuade the Libyan government to release Guardian correspondent Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who was detained 11 days ago while reporting from the country.

Libya's foreign ministry confirmed last week that it was holding Abdul-Ahad, but there has been no word on his whereabouts and no explanation of why he is still being detained after a Brazilian journalist he was travelling with was freed last Thursday.

Abdul-Ahad and Andrei Netto, a correspondent for the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S Paulo, were picked up in the coastal town of Sabratha on March 2 then moved to a prison on the outskirts of the capital Tripoli.

The Guardian has been in contact with Libyan officials in Tripoli and London as well as Arab and international figures and asked them urgently to give all assistance in securing Abdul-Ahad's release. There is particular concern that he has had no access to a lawyer. » | Ian Black | Sunday, March 13, 2011

Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in 
the Middle East
AL BAB.com: Homosexuality is still taboo in the Arab countries. While clerics denounce it as a heinous sin, newspapers, reluctant to address it directly, talk cryptically of ‘shameful acts’ and ‘deviant behaviour’. Despite growing acceptance of sexual diversity in many parts of the world, attitudes in the Middle East have been hardening against it.

In this absorbing account, Guardian journalist Brian Whitaker paints a disturbing picture of people who live secretive, often fearful lives; of daughters and sons beaten and ostracised by their families or sent to be ‘cured’ by psychiatrists; of men imprisoned and flogged for ‘behaving like women’; of others who have been jailed simply for trying to find love on the Internet.

Amid all the talk of reform in the Middle East, homosexuality is one issue that almost everyone in the region would prefer to ignore, and yet there are pockets of change and tolerance. Deeply informed and engagingly written, Unspeakable Love draws long overdue attention to this crucial subject. >>> Brian Whitaker | Sunday, June 07, 2009 (Last revision)

Amazon.co.uk >>>
Saqi Books >>>
University of California Press >>>
Amazon.com >>>
Arabic translation >>>