Gulf: Don’t believe the hype, GCC states are as repressive as they’ve ever been

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/saudi-arabia-executions-double-2022/

See also The Guardian.

‘Ottoman Archival Documents on the Shrines of Karbala, Najaf, and the Hejaz (1660s-1720s): Endowment Wars, the Spoils System, and Iranian Pilgrims’
Selim Güngörürler
JESHO, 64/2021, 897-1032

This study introduces and publishes an array of Ottoman archival documents on the shrines of Ahl al-Bayt imams in Iraq, the endowments dedicated to these shrines, and the Shiite-Iranian pilgrims visiting these sites as well as the Kaaba and the shrine of Muhammad in the Hejaz. Focusing on the later seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries, it discusses the political-economic function of Islamic endowments, interconfessional contacts resulting from pilgrimage by Shiites in Sunni territory, and the potential use of Ottoman archives to enrich our knowledge on trans-Ottoman themes.

US Congress Calls for Report from State Department on Political Prisoners in Bahrain

For ADHRB Weekly Newsletter 438, click here. This includes the following ADHRB note:

‘ADHRB would like to thank the UN High Commissioner for her statement condemning the mass execution of 81 individuals by beheading in Saudi Arabia on 12 March. 41 of those belonged to the Shia minority and had participated in the pro-democracy demonstrations of 2011. We support the declaration that their execution may amount to a war crime in light of the lack of guarantees for fair trial.
On the other hand, we are raising caution about the fate of Sadeq Majeed Thamer and Jaafar Mohamed Sultan who face imminent risk of execution in Saudi Arabia. The two Bahrainis were previously sentenced to life imprisonment in Bahrain on terrorism-related charges. Saudi authorities arrested them on 8 May 2015 and forcibly disappeared them for 115 days, while allegations of torture and violations of due process rights were ignored. They were sentenced to death on 7 October 2021 on the same charges. They face imminent risk of execution.’