What Isn’t Being Said About France’s Riots

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On June 27, 2023, French police shot and killed a teenager named Nahel M. in the working-class Parisian suburb of Nanterre. Anonymous police sources told French media that the 17-year-old tried to drive into them causing the police officer to use his firearm.

But a video of the incident circulating on social media showed the two officers standing by the driver’s side window and appearing to shoot Nahel as the vehicle began to move.

Protests and riots ensued for the next week, with local news outlets reporting that the average protester was only 17 years old — the same age as Nahel. The anger spread quickly around the country. There were riots in the suburbs of Paris, but also those near Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Lille. Protests also took place in France’s overseas territories. Rioters burned cars, buses, police stations, town halls, schools, and libraries and aimed fireworks at riot police. Many involved in riots said they didn’t know Nahel but they could have just as easily been in his place.

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Iraq’s Marshes Parched as Government Focuses on Oil

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In the southern Iraqi town of Chibaish, Mansour Abbas stood on the edge of his “mashoof,” the canoe-like vessel used by inhabitants of Iraq’s marshes, holding his young son’s arms in his hands. The boat was pulled onto the shore of a small waterway, much bigger just a couple of years earlier, that connects to the Euphrates River. The sun beat down on the land from a cloudless sky. A small group of water buffalo, their white spots dyed orange with henna, clustered in the shade just a few yards away. The only thing interrupting endless blue in the distance was an oil well, shooting a straight line of fire into the sky.

Abbas, 40, relocated to this area in 2015. Before that, he’d lived deeper in the marshland. There, he’d caught fish and reared a flourishing herd of 55 water buffalos, he said. Much of the local economy revolved around the gifts given by water buffalo. Locals would sell their milk or turn it into white cheese or a local heavy cream delicacy called geymar. But when the water near his home drained, Abbas could no longer fish. Most of his herd fell ill and died, leaving him with just five water buffalo. He still dreams of going back to his old home, but “there’s no water there,” he said.

Iraq is the fifth most vulnerable nation on the planet when it comes to water and food security. But Iraq is also currently OPEC’s second largest oil producer, after Saudi Arabia, pumping out 4.5 million barrels of oil per day. Oil revenues exceeded $115 billion in 2022, according to the country’s oil ministry. That revenue helps pay public sector salaries and food imports.

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The Struggle to Save Iraq’s Marshes

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On the morning of Feb.1, 2023, Jassim al-Assadi was making the 60-mile drive from the central Iraqi city of Hillah to Baghdad with his cousin. Al-Assadi, a prominent environmentalist described by one colleague as the “godfather of environmentalists in Iraq” and a leading voice on protecting Iraq’s southern marshes, a UNESCO heritage site, had meetings with Iraqi officials and plans to meet Iraq’s Minister of Water Resources the next day.

Al-Assadi never made the meetings. On the highway to Baghdad, al-Assadi’s car was stopped by two vehicles. Armed men, wearing plain clothes, emerged from the cars and took al-Assadi. They handcuffed him and forced him into one of their vehicles. Al-Assadi’s cousin was left on the side of the road a little over three miles from Baghdad.

Over the next two weeks, al-Assadi was allegedly moved between multiple facilities and underwent, in his own words, “the most severe forms of torture” using “electricity and sticks.” On Feb. 16, 2023, al-Assadi was released. Looking battered and morally defeated, he gave a public statement. In late February, he left Iraq to join his colleague Dr. Azzam Alwash in Amman, the capital of Jordan.

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Egyptian activist’s arrest sparks safety fears in Lebanon

Lebanese security agents stormed the apartment of exiled Egyptian activist Abdelrahman Tarek, known to friends as Moka, on May 24, telling the 29-year-old to pack a bag. He was fearful that he would be deported to Egypt and arrested again.

He was released six hours later, but Tarek’s detention triggered fears that Egypt is pressuring regional governments to round up its critics. The incident also raised questions about safety in Lebanon, where dissidents from around the Middle East have long sought refuge from authoritarian regimes and have been able to speak freely.

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No One Puts Kuwait in a Corner, Even Saudi Arabia

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In the early 1920s, the British protectorate of Kuwait held about two-thirds more land than it does today. At the Uqair Conference in 1922, the British high commissioner in Iraq Percy Cox gave much of southern Kuwait to the Najd Sultanate, which would later become the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Kuwaiti leadership was unhappy, but borders in the Arabian Peninsula then were relatively flexible.

While borders have hardened in the years since, the area between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia has remained undefined, even in 1938 when oil was discovered in southern Kuwait. The “Divided Zone” is an undefined 2,228 square mile, oil-rich area that straddles the two countries’ border and extends into the Persian Gulf. For years, the two states have coordinated and equally shared the profits from oil production here.

But in 2009, a new dispute emerged between Kuwait and Saudi over the Divided Zone. The two nations regularly refer to their relationship as “brotherly.” But the dispute triggered fears of some in Kuwait that Saudi Arabia might flex their muscles and redraw borders once again.

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