Global Voices Online

Bahraini blogger Mahmood reports that 20 per cent of Bahrainis are living below the poverty line.

Recent Links also in Middle East & North Africa

Tunisian blogger Fatma Riahi, who blogs as Fatma Arabicca, has been charged with defamation on her own blog and is now being detained. A group has been formed on Facebook in support of the 34-year-old blogger, who is also being accused of blogging on Debat Tunise (Tunisia Debate).

Aicha Ech Chenna, founder of an organization in Casablanca, “Solidarité féminine,” which takes care of unmarried mothers, has been announced as the winner of the $1 million 2009 Opus Prize, as reported by online Moroccan news website, Hespress [Ar].

Man of Paper reports [ar] on his blog that Shabablek, a Syrian magazine, has suspended all work indefinitely in protest of the pervasive censorship from the side of the Syrian Ministry of Information.