Women’s rights

Kurdish people waving Kurdistan flags gather to celebrate Nowruz on the hill of Urkesh in the countryside of Amuda in northeastern Syria on March 18, 2026. Nowruz, meaning "new day," is an ancient festival that marks the start of spring and the new year on the vernal equinox, which usually falls on March 20 or 21. It is celebrated by more than 300 million people worldwide and has been observed for over 3,000 years across regions including the Middle East, Central Asia, the Caucasus and parts of Eastern Euro

Analysis

Is Syria’s Sharaa poised to outdo Turkey in formalizing gains for Kurds?

Damascus is making limited but tangible progress in its engagement with Syrian Kurds, even as Ankara seeks to shape the terms of any settlement.

Amberin Zaman

By Amberin Zaman

Reporting on geopolitics, minorities, human rights, culture

Iranian instructor Maryam Ghelich stands with student Narghes as they look at Elham (3rd R), Leila and Mona, posing on their motorbikes before their lesson at a training center in northern Tehran on Dec. 7, 2025.

Iran formally allows women to drive motorcycles: What to know

The new resolution comes amid widespread unrest in Iran, where massive nationwide protests triggered by economic hardship and a severe government crackdown have shaken cities across the country.

Adri Salido/Getty Images

Culture

Lebanon’s first lady Nehmat Aoun takes center stage during Pope's visit

Lebanon’s first lady, Nehmat Aoun, attended nearly all gatherings and visits of Pope Leo during his three-day trip to Beirut, highlighting her active involvement in social and humanitarian issues.

CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images

Lebanon’s citizenship offer for FIFA head sparks debate over equal rights

Lebanon’s president has announced he will grant citizenship to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, sparking a wave of outrage.

Latest News

Iran judicial chief orders crackdown on women defying hijab law: What to know

A couple sits facing the skyline of Tehran from Bam-e Tehran in Tehran, Iran on October 24, 2025. (Photo by Bahram / Middle East Images via AFP) (Photo by BAHRAM/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

Culture

Rape case against movie star Pejman Jamshidi rocks Iran: What to know

Iranian women without wearing hijab shout slogans while gathering around a burning dumpster during a protest near Punak square, on Oct. 1, 2022

Leaked video shows Khamenei aide's daughter in Western wedding gown amid Iran's hijab crackdown

ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images

Iran adding 80,000 personnel to enforce hijab in Tehran province

ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images

Iranian Armenian schoolgirls walk home after class in the Julfa neighbourhood in the historic city of Isfahan, some 400 kms south of the capital, Tehran on April 21, 2015. Julfa neighborhood in Isfahan is where the biggest Armenian community in Iran resides and was established as an Armenian quarter by Persian Safavid King Shah Abbas I in 1606. Some 180.000 Armenians were living in Iran before the Islamic revolution in 1979, compared to some 60000 today, according to official figures. Most of the community

Fury in Iran as officials fail to address schoolgirls' poisonings

Iranian authorities either looked the other way or blamed the students, failing to soothe the public rage at the fresh suspected gas attacks on schoolgirls.

Alinejad

Breaking | Last Updated: April 10, 2023, 4:59 pm

Iranian-born US woman sentenced in plot to kidnap Masih Alinejad

Niloufar Bahadorifar, sentenced to prison, had pleaded guilty in December for unknowingly supporting an alleged Iranian plot to kidnap activist Masih Alinejad.

Women chant slogans in front of the Istanbul courthouse in Istanbul on April 5, 2023, as We Will Stop Femicides Platform, leading women rights group in Turkey appear on court for the second hearing of the trial that seeks to ban the platform.

Will Turkey’s conservative young women abandon Erdogan and AKP?

The conservative women vote played an important role in bringing Erdogan’s AKP to power two decades ago. But according to polls, that segment of Turkish society is looking for alternatives as AKP became too conservative for their taste.

Lebanese women hold placards during a protest organized by civil society groups and activists.

Lebanon fumes as another woman murdered by husband

The man killed his wife in front of their three children, renewing calls to enforce laws on domestic violence.

Chairman of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Kemal Kilicdaroglu (C).

Turkey’s opposing camps seek to broaden base ahead of May elections

The rapprochement between Erdogan’s People’s Alliance and the Kurdish Islamist Huda-Par, seen as the successor of Hezbollah, annoys nationalists, while the move toward arch-conservative New Welfare alarms women.

A sneak peak from season two of Khateera’s Smatouha Menni which is expected to release in March 2023.

Culture

Arab women's group 'Khateera' dares to defy, one narrative at a time

Khateera’s content ranges from misconceptions about women’s intelligence in society and women's unpaid labor, to heavier topics such as sexual rights and honor killings, toxic masculinity and the shame around periods in Middle East society.

Women take part in a rally ahead of International Women's Day, Istanbul, Turkey, March 6, 2022.

Turkey’s earthquake victims at heart of International Women's Day marches

The earthquakes that ravaged 11 provinces in southern Turkey also amplified the socio-economic inequalities between men and women in the region.

Iranian Women in handmaiden costumes march along Whitehall as a peaceful protest for womens rights on International Womens Day on March 8, 2023 in London, England. Protests continue internationally in solidarity with Iranian women in their struggle for full gender equality and to have the freedom to choose how they want to dress and live their lives without fear, assault or intimidation. (Photo by Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images)

EU, UK sanction Iran, Taliban entities on International Women's Day

Marking International Women’s Day, the European Union and the British government each decided to sanction individuals and entities for violating human rights, particularly sexual and gender-based violence.

A woman dressed in traditional clothing poses for a picture while standing on a rock in the Mazqaft water reservoir in the countryside of the town of Qahtaniyah in Syria's northeastern Hasakah province close to the border with Turkey, during Syrian Kurdish celebrations on the second day of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on March 21, 2021. (Photo by DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Culture

A decade into Kurdish autonomous rule, what changed for northeast Syria's women?

Since 2013, the province of Hasakah in northeastern Syria has been ruled by an autonomous administration guided by overtly feminist principles. Ten years later, what has changed for rural women? What challenges remain?

Rally in Jerusalem, Feb. 25 2023 Credit: Tal Kfir Shor

Handmaid's Tale inspires Israeli women battling religious coercion

Hundreds of women clad in red cloaks and sporting white bonnets have been appearing in the past few weeks in several of the anti-judicial overhaul, pro-democracy demonstrations across the country.

Iranian school-girls attend President Rouhani's presentation of the for 2018-2019 budget to the parliament on December 10, 2017, in Tehran. / AFP PHOTO / ATTA KENARE (Photo credit should read ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)

With over 100 victims, who is poisoning Iran's schoolgirls?

Hundreds of Iranian schoolgirls have been mysteriously poisoned over the past few months and the government was forced to open an investigation when the problem reached Tehran on Wednesday.

Iraqi women's rights activists lift placards during a rally near the Supreme Judicial Council in Baghdad on Feb. 5.

Honor killings in Iraq rekindle efforts to criminalize domestic violence

There is once again outrage and calls for legal reforms in Iraq to protect women from being murdered at the hands of family members.