Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is a country located in West Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of the Persian Gulf. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, while sharing maritime borders with Iran and Pakistan. The capital city is Muscat. Oman has a population of 5,492,196 and is ranked the 120th most populous country. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the southeast, and the Gulf of Oman on the northeast. The Madha and Musandam exclaves are surrounded by United Arab Emirates on their land borders, with the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman forming Musandam's coastal boundaries.
The political system of Qatar is a semi-constitutional monarchy with the emir as head of state and chief executive, and the prime minister as the head of government. Under the Constitution of Qatar, the partially-elected Consultative Assembly has a limited ability to reject legislation and dismiss ministers. The first general election was held in 2021.
The United Arab Emirates, or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East. It is located at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula and shares borders with Oman and Saudi Arabia, while also having maritime borders in the Persian Gulf with Qatar and Iran. Abu Dhabi is the nation's capital, while Dubai, the most populous city, is an international hub.
Qaboos bin Said Al Said was Sultan of Oman from 23 July 1970 until his death in 2020. A fifteenth-generation descendant of the founder of the House of Al Said, he was the longest-serving leader in the Middle East and Arab world at the time of his death, having ruled for almost half a century.
According to human rights organisations, the government of the UAE violates a number of fundamental human rights. The UAE does not have democratically elected institutions and citizens do not have the right to change their government or to form political parties. Activists and academics who criticize the regime are detained and imprisoned, and their families are often harassed by the state security apparatus. There are reports of forced disappearances in the UAE; many foreign nationals and Emirati citizens have been abducted by the UAE government and illegally detained and tortured in undisclosed locations. In numerous instances, the UAE government has tortured people in custody , and has denied their citizens the right to a speedy trial and access to counsel during official investigations.
Oman is an absolute monarchy in which all legislative, executive, and judiciary power ultimately rests in the hands of the hereditary sultan, and in which the system of laws is based firmly on the monarchs made laws. Although a report by the U.S. State Department, based on conditions in 2010, summed up the human rights situation in the country by asserting that the government "generally respected the human rights of its citizens,", several international human-rights groups have described the state of human rights in Oman in highly critical terms. Article 41 of Oman's statute (constitution) criminalizes any criticism of the sultan, stating that "the sultan's person is inviolable and must be respected and his orders must be obeyed".
Bahrain's record on human rights has been described by Human Rights Watch as "dismal", and having "deteriorated sharply in the latter half of 2010". Their subsequent report in 2020 noted that the human rights situation in the country had not improved.
Times of Oman is a daily newspaper published in the Sultanate of Oman. Established in 1975, the newspaper is the oldest English-language paper of Oman. Apart from daily news on local, regional, international, business and sport interests, It provides information on topics such as entertainment, fashion and lifestyle, education, information and technology, health and books.
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) was a non-governmental organization devoted to promoting freedom of expression across the Middle East and North Africa. It was founded in the year 2004. Based in Cairo, Egypt, the organization was founded by prominent Egyptian attorney and human rights activist Gamal Eid, who also served as the ANHRI's executive director. The ANHRI collected publications, campaigns, reports, and statements from almost 140 Arab human rights organizations across the region and republished them in a daily digest on its website. The group focused on supporting free expression, especially via the internet and mass media, and worked on behalf of persons regarded as having been detained on political grounds. It also advocated against censorship by Arab governments.
Bahrain, officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is an island country in West Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an additional 33 artificial islands, centered on Bahrain Island which makes up around 83 per cent of the country's landmass. Bahrain is situated between Qatar and the northeastern coast of Saudi Arabia, to which it is connected by the King Fahd Causeway. The current population of Bahrain is 1,870,817 as of May 14, 2023, based on elaborations of the latest United Nations data, of whom 712,362 are Bahraini nationals. Bahrain spans some 760 square kilometres (290 sq mi), and is the third-smallest nation in Asia after the Maldives and Singapore. The capital and largest city is Manama.
The 2011 Omani protests were a series of protests in the Persian Gulf country of Oman that occurred as part of the revolutionary wave popularly known as the "Arab Spring".
Internal Security Service is the national security agency of the Sultanate of Oman. The agency focuses solely upon domestic security while foreign intelligence operations is specifically handled by the Palace Office, which controls external security and coordinates all intelligence and security policies.
Nabeel Ahmed Abdulrasool Rajab is a Bahraini human rights activist and opposition leader. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch's Middle East Division, Deputy Secretary General for the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), former chairman of CARAM Asia, member of the Advisory Board of the Bahrain Rehabilitation and Anti-Violence Organization (BRAVO), and Founding Director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR).
Qatar State Security is the state intelligence agency of Qatar. It is a branch of the Qatari Ministry of Interior. It was created in 2004, after the General Intelligence Service (Mukhabarat) and the Investigation and State Security Service (mubahith) merged. It performs internal security investigations, gathers intelligence, and has primary responsibility for sedition and espionage cases. In June 2017, a former director of the agency accused Qatar of supporting terrorism amid diplomatic tension between Qatar and gulf countries. The intelligence agency has been accused of human rights violations over arbitrary arrests of citizens without court warrants for expressing opinions on social media. On February 7 2022, Human rights watch drafted a report out which states that the State Security Apparatus Law "does not provide for any judicial oversight over such detention, and the Working Group was informed that in practice, such detention leads to very long periods of deprivation of liberty, in violation of international human rights norms," according to a statement from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention after an official visit to Qatar in 2019. Now, everyone has the freedom to leave any country, including their own, according to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Qatar adopted in 2018. The treaty permits nations to place limitations on that right, provided that they are authorized by law and necessary and reasonable to safeguard the country's security, public order, health, morals, or other rights and freedoms.
Azamn is an independent Arabic newspaper in the Sultanate of Oman on the Arabian peninsula. It was suspended by the Omani government on August 9, 2016 following a report about senior Omani officials pressuring the country's judiciary to overturn a decision in an inheritance case. On September 26, a court ordered its permanent closure.
Saud Bahwan is an Omani billionaire businessman.
Mohammed bin Said bin Salim Al Shanfari was an Omani dramatist playwright and director. It was said of him that “His ideas inspired a generation.” He spent his working life advancing the cause of drama and the theatre. He received several awards in recognition of his work together with favourable reviews in Arabian media while he was alive, and also after his death.
The Sultanate of Oman, established on August 9, 1970, is an absolute monarchy in which all the power resides with the sultan. The government controls what information the mass media relays, and the law prohibits any criticism of the Sultan or government.
The 2018–2019 Omani protests were nationwide protests and rallies in which tens of thousands of protesters marched against skyrocketing unemployment and inflation in the Sultanate of Oman. These protests were part of a larger series of anti-government protests in several Arab countries, known as the 2018-2022 Arab Protests. Over a 13-month period between January 2018 and January 2019, Omani citizens went out into the streets on several occasions to rally against decisions made by their government, whilst demanding more employment opportunities as well as economic reforms.
Muwatin is an independent Omani magazine. Founded in 2013 by Omani journalist Mohamed al Fazari and currently based in the United Kingdom, it is published by the Muwatin Media Network on a monthly basis. The magazine traditionally focuses on Omani and Gulf topics such as politics, human rights, and economics. As of June 2021, over 50 issues have been published. The magazine's website is blocked in Oman and Saudi Arabia.
