10 years after: Why the Arab Spring ended in a cruel winter
The 2011 uprisings lacked a transnational movement strong enough to challenge powerful despots and their friends in Washington.
Sarah Leah Whitson is the Executive Director of DAWN. Previously, she served as executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division from 2004 – 2020, overseeing the work of the division in 19 countries, with staff located in 10 countries.
She has led dozens of advocacy and investigative missions throughout the region, focusing on issues of armed conflict, accountability, legal reform, migrant workers, and human rights. She has published widely on human rights and foreign policy in the Middle East in international and regional media, including The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Los Angeles Times, and CNN.
She appears regularly on Al-Jazeera, BBC, NPR, and CNN. Previously, Whitson worked in New York for Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Law School. Whitson is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is on the boards of the Artistic Freedom Initiative, Freedom Forward, and ALQST for Human Rights. She speaks Armenian and Arabic.
The 2011 uprisings lacked a transnational movement strong enough to challenge powerful despots and their friends in Washington.
Loujain Al-Hathoul is everything the new president should stand for, but is he ready to stand up to MBS?
The Trump administration’s attempt to interfere with the International Criminal Court, simply because it is investigating Americans, is uniquely perverse.
An attack this week on an Iraqi base that killed two U.S. service members, and the U.S. military response, should serve as a reminder that endless war isn’t just confined to Afghanistan.