Independent UN rights experts on Sept. 5 called on the government of Bahrain to release human rights activist Maryam al-Khawaja due to the absence of evidence against her. Al-Khawaja was arrested in August upon her return to Bahrain and was charged with insulting the king and assaulting police officers. According to a post on al-Khawaja's twitter account, she has not been permitted to see a lawyer since her arrest. The rights experts expressed concern at the rash of apparent political imprisonment of individuals expressing their freedom of opinion, particularly human rights activists.

Aug. 21 marked the one-year anniversary of the chemical weapon attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, found by international investigations to have been the work of the Bashar Assad regime. The Syrian diaspora around the world held protests and vigils marking the event, the one in New York's Times Square the evening of Aug. 22 drawing some 200 wearing matching t-shirts reading "CHEMICAL MASSACRE IN SYRIA: WE WILL NEVER FORGET." Amid Syrian flags (the pre-Assad version used by the rebel forces), protesters laid white-shrouded effigies representing the dead, and as the sun set lit rows of small candles that formed the number 1,476—the sum of those killed in the attack. At the climax of the ceremony, hundreds of the victims' names were read aloud. The protest, co-organized by Save Syrian Children, was dubbed One Year of Breathing Death, in recognition of the fact that chemical attacks in Syria have continued. Organizers said activists have confirmed 27 separate cases of chemical gas use since the UN Security Council passed UNSCR 2118, calling for the destruction of all chemical weapons and chemical weapons facilities in Syria. (WW4R on the scene)

At least four were killed in clashes between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and Egyptian police forces on Aug. 14, first anniversary of the Rabaa Square massacre, in which perhaps 1,000 lost their lives. The deaths were reported from Cairo, Giza, Anwar El-Shawadfi and Ayman Abdel-Hadi. Human Rights Watch released a report two days before the anniversary finding that last years' killings at Rabaa Square were crimes against humanity, and calling for an international inquiry. HRW director Kenneth Roth and HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson were denied entry into Egypt on Aug. 11. Egypt's government said the report was "characterized by negativity and bias." (Ahram Online, Al Jazeera)

Kuwait's Supreme Court on July 12 upheld a 10-year jail sentence for a man accused of posting Tweets that insulted the Prophet Mohammed and the Sunni Muslim rulers of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Hamad al-Naqi, a 24-year-old member of Kuwait's Shiite minority, was also found guilty of spreading false news that undermined Kuwait's image abroad. The Supreme Court's decision is final and can only be commuted by the Kuwaiti Emir. An appeals court affirmed al-Naqi's sentence in October. The result drew criticism from Human Rights Watch (HRW), which condemned the decision as a "violat[ion of] international standards on freedom of expression." He has been in prison since his arrest in March 2012, and was originally sentenced in June 2012. Al-Naqi has maintained his innocence, arguing that his Twitter account was hacked.

Bahrain's Ministry of Justice on July 20 filed a lawsuit seeking to suspend all activities of the main Shi'ite opposition group for three months. The move comes after leaders of the Al-Wefaq party were charged recently with holding an illegal meeting with a US diplomat from the State Department. The lawsuit, however, does not mention the meeting, but rather seeks to suspend the party for violating quorum and transparency requirements. Al-Wefaq leader Ali Salman said his party plans to challenge the move.

Residents of Aleppo, the northern Syrian city under siege and bombardment by regime forces for months now, held a candle-light ceremony July 14 expressing their support for the residents of Gaza, now under Israeli bombardment and invasion. (PMOI, July 15) The Assad regime's "barrel bombs"—oil drums packed with hundreds of kilograms of explosives and metal fragments—have killed thousands in Aleppo and other rebel-held areas of Syria this year. Fears of the city's fall to regime forces have risen after the army made gains in the last two weeks, taking the Sheikh Naijar industrial zone in the northeast—seen by some as a "turning point" in the war. (DW, July 15) The same claims were heard when Homs was surrendered to regime forces two months ago.

Tripoli's airport has been severely damaged and several commercial planes destroyed in heavy fighting between armed groups, prompting the United Nations to pull its staff out of Libya. A coalition of Islamist militias under the banner of Operation Fajr, or Dawn, is apparently attempting to wrest control of the facility from the Zintani militias stationed there. At least 15 people have been killed in clashes in Tripoli and Benghazi in the past three dfays.  (Reuters, July 15; Libya Herald, July 13) Meanwhile, Islamist militant Faraj al-Shibli, named by the US as a suspect in the 2012 attack in Benghazi, was found dead in the eastern town of Marj, where he had reportedly been detained by a local militia over the weekend. Al-Shibli, a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, had been detained by government forces last year, and was apparently interrogated by the FBI—before being released without explanation. He had been wanted by the Qaddafi regime in connection with the murder of a German intelligence agent in Sirte in 1994. Libyan authorities also issued an arrest warrant for Osama bin Laden in connection with the crime. (CNN, July 14)

The Cairo Court for Urgent Matters on July 14 overturned a May decision that banned former leaders of the National Democratic Party (NDP) from running in the country's parliamentary elections. An Urgent Matters Court in May accused  the now-dissolved NDP of overseeing corrupt governments, stating that allowing a political return for the former ruling party would bring danger to Egypt. The NDP was disbanded and ordered to liquidate its assets by the Supreme Administrative Court in April 2011, following longtime president and NDP party chairman Hosni Mubarak's fall from power. Many party leaders formed new parties or attached themselves to existing ones. Although the committee that drafted the country's new constitution in 2012 attempted to include an article that would ban NDP leaders from participating in politics for 10 years, the article was dropped after former president Mohammed Morsi was ousted (and another new constitution approved). In its decision, the appeals court said that the lower court lacked the proper jurisdiction to rule on the matter, the plaintiff had failed to present any evidence of corruption that incriminated the leaders, and the prior ruling violated the leaders' constitutional right to political participation.