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Place: KUA2 - 15A.0.13 Time: 5-7 pm
In this event, we will explore the interconnected issues of repression and resistance of political prisoners in the Middle East, and political irresponsibility and complicity in the West.
We will ask what the status of political prisoners looks like in 2025 in the Middle East, where many regimes - both authoritarian and nominally democratic - have a history of imprisoning dissidents, journalists and activists on vague charges such as 'terrorism', 'spreading false news' or 'threatening national security'.
We will focus on some of the most high-profile cases in countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, where political opponents and human rights activists are often arrested and imprisoned without any or fair trials.
At the same time, we will look at the potential double standard when Western nations, particularly the US, UK and EU member states, claim to champion human rights and democracy but appear selective in their criticism or attention to abuses in their geopolitical sphere of interest.
In this event, our guests will present the cases of prominent political prisoners from different countries in the Middle East, including:
- Maryam al-Khawaja, a Danish-Bahraini human rights defender and leading voice on human rights in the Gulf, a former Nobel Prize nominee and the daughter of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, a Danish-Bahraini human rights defender unlawfully detained in Bahrain since 2011.
- Lina al-Hathloul, a Saudi human rights activist and sister of Loujain al-Hathloul, a prominent Saudi political activist, who has been imprisoned several times by the Saudi regime for her fight for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia..
- Jihan Zakariyya, Associate Professor at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
KUA - Københavns Universitet Amager, Karen Blixens Vej 4,Copenhagen, Copenhagen , Denmark
