A key demand of the Algerian hostage takers is the release of a Pakistani mother-of-three currently serving an 86-year sentence in a US prison. So why has her case gone virtually unmentioned in the mainstream media? Journalist Yvonne Ridley, herself a former hostage, reports.

In Saudi Town, Women Protest Detentions, Leading to Their Own

Last weekend, Saudi security forces encircled and arrested a small group of women who were protesting the long-term detention of relatives without charges on suspicion of terrorism, and the event has touched off nearly a week of unrest in the Saudi town of Buraida.

Today, Monday 7th January 2013, Vanessa Whiteley, a British writer from Cotham, and the poetry evenings coordinator of last year's Palestine-Bristol Film Festival, has started a fast with five Bristolians in solidarity with five Palestinian prisoners who are on indefinite hunger strike in Israeli jails.

Arab Women Media Watch Centre in UK (AWMW) congratulates the 2012 Olof Palme Prize winners, Radhia Nasraoui from Tunisia and Waleed Sami Abu Alkhair from Saudi Arabia both of whom are Arab lawyers, fighting for the freedoms and rights of people in the Arab region.