The Assyrian International News Agency reports Kurdish village leaders, in league with local bosses of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), are waging a "lawful means" campaign to confiscate the lands of the Assyrian monastery of St. Gabriel, founded in 397 CE, in the eastern Turkish city of Midyat. Timotheos Samuel Aktas, the Metropolitian of Tur Abdin, charges that the Kurdish mayors of Yayvantepe, Eglence and Çandarlı villages "falsely claimed" in a petition to judicial authorities that Mor Gabriel Monastery has illegally encroached upon village woodlands and cut oak trees. The monastery is also accused of illegally conducting missionary activity among local Muslim youth.

Yemeni police in the capital Sana Nov. 27 opened fire on thousands of opposition protesters, wounding 23, three critically, rally organizers said. The Interior Ministry said the troops only fired in the air to disperse the crowd, and warned in a statement that the opposition parties would be held responsible for "the consequences of their illegal acts." The Yemeni journalists union also issued a statement saying troops used batons and weapon butts to beat seven reporters who were covering the rally. Dozens of protesters were arrested, while the Interior Ministry said two police were also injured.

A Syrian court sentenced 12 prominent dissidents to two and a half years each in prison Oct. 29 for calling for democratic reforms and an end to the Baath Party's monopoly on power. The dissidents, 11 men and a woman, were arrested last year after holding a large meeting to revive a movement that called for freedom of expression and a new constitution in Syria. The defendants, who are among Syria's leading intellectuals and opposition figures, have been imprisoned since their arrest. The charges against them include "weakening national morale." (Reuters, Oct. 29)

US aircraft crossed five miles into Syrian air space Oct. 26 and launched a raid that left at least eight dead and several more injured near the Iraqi border, Damascus charges. The Foreign Ministry summoned the US envoy in Damascus to protest "this dangerous aggression," Syria's state news agency Sana reported.

Saudi authorities have indicted 991 suspected militants on charges that they participated in terrorist attacks carried out in the kingdom over the last five years, Interior Minister Prince Nayef said Oct. 21. "In the past few years, the kingdom has been the target of an organized terrorist campaign linked to networks of strife and sedition overseas," Prince Nayef said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.

A report issued Oct. 14 by Amnesty International (AI) links the large number of executions in Saudi Arabia to flaws in the Saudi judicial system. The report, titled "Affront to Justice: Death Penalty in Saudi Arabia," noted a significant increase in executions from 2006 to 2007, when at least 158 death sentences were carried out, and a relatively high rate of execution for migrant or foreign workers.

More than a hundred Egyptians attacked police with rocks and sticks in the town of Samalut south of Cairo on Oct. 9 after a pregnant woman died during a police search of her home. Mervat Salam Abdel Fatah, in late pregnancy, died of internal bleeding when police shoved her to the floor after she refused to allow them into her home, authorities said. Police had a warrant for her brother-in-law, accused of theft. Police responded to the spontaneous uprising with tear gas. One officer was reported hospitalized. (Middle East Online, Oct. 9)

The Sept. 29 bus bombing in the Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli, which killed five people including four soldiers and wounded at least 33 others, triggered angry reactions from political leaders. Future Movement MP Saad Hariri lashed out at Syrian President Bashar Assad, accusing him of trying to insinuate that Lebanon was responsible for recent terror attacks in Syria. Assad, who has recently mobilized troops to the Lebanese border, said after the Tripoli blast that North Lebanon had become "a real base for extremism and constitutes a danger for Syria." (Daily Star, Lebanon, Sept. 30)