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For nearly 80 years following Pakistan’s 1947 founding, a defining line has been printed on every Pakistani passport: “Valid for all countries of the world except Israel.” This is far more than a bureaucratic footnote; it is the physical embodiment of one of Pakistan’s most enduring and consensus-driven foreign policy pillars: the total non-recognition of the Israeli state.

Rooted in widespread religious solidarity with Palestinians, reinforced by a politically active media landscape, and preserved by successive governments that have refused to challenge popular opinion, this position has held unshaken through decades of regional and global upheaval. Pakistan’s policy has consistently tied any potential recognition of Israel to the creation of an independent Palestinian state along pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its sovereign capital – a red line that has remained consistent regardless of which party or military leadership holds power in Islamabad.

Now, that decades-long national consensus is facing an unprecedented test of external pressure, sparked by former U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping new proposal that ties a potential post-war peace deal with Iran to a mandatory, broad expansion of the Abraham Accords.

First negotiated during Trump’s first term in 2020, the Abraham Accords are a set of bilateral normalization agreements between Israel and multiple Muslim-majority nations, starting with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, with Morocco and Sudan joining the framework shortly after. In a recent Truth Social post, released following closed-door talks with Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Trump called for Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and other regional states to join the accords simultaneously to cement a historic regional settlement. “It should start with the immediate signing by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and everybody else should follow suit,” Trump wrote.

Islamabad rejected the demand within days. Speaking to a local Pakistani television channel on May 26, Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif made clear that Pakistan would never join any agreement that contradicted its core ideological commitments. “Right now, no initiative in this regard has been taken by us, nor has anyone asked us,” Asif added, echoing earlier official statements that reaffirmed Pakistan’s longstanding stance. Just months prior, in January 2024, Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi reiterated that Pakistan would not join the Abraham Accords, framing the issue solely through the lens of Palestinian statehood: “We have no issue with which countries choose to join or not join the accords. We view the matter through the prism of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state.”

The public demand has reignited a long-simmering periodic debate in Pakistan that has rarely gained mainstream political traction: could Islamabad ever reverse its position on recognizing Israel, and what conditions would force such a shift?

Analysts broadly agree that Pakistan’s stance is shaped not only by diplomatic principle, but by overwhelming domestic political realities that make normalization extremely high-risk for any sitting government. Unlike the Gulf monarchies that joined the initial Abraham Accords, Pakistan operates a competitive political system where public opinion, Islamist opposition parties, armed factions, parliament, civil society, and a fiercely independent media all exert heavy influence over foreign policy outcomes, explained Muhammad Israr Madani, head of the Islamabad-based International Research Council for Religious Affairs. A senior anonymous Pakistani foreign ministry official echoed this assessment, noting that “the political costs of normalisation are ‘significantly higher in Pakistan than in most Arab states. Any government perceived as abandoning the Palestinian cause would face immediate resistance from religious parties and significant sections of the public.’”

The issue is further complicated by Pakistan’s decades-long stance on the Kashmir dispute, where Pakistani policymakers have long drawn parallels between the Kashmiri and Palestinian struggles, framing both as fights for self-determination enshrined in international law. Many analysts warn that recognizing Israel without a final Palestinian settlement would open Islamabad to accusations of diplomatic hypocrisy and undermine a core pillar of its regional foreign policy narrative.

Trump’s latest proposal goes further than prior U.S. efforts by tying any future progress on Iran diplomacy to expanded normalization, a demand that has been met with deep skepticism across much of the Muslim world, amplified by widespread public anger over Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. The Abraham Accords have remained a central pillar of Trump’s Middle East policy vision, and his closest congressional ally, Senator Lindsey Graham, has publicly backed the push, warning that refusal to join the framework would bring “severe repercussions” for bilateral relationships with the U.S. and would go down as a “major miscalculation” in history.

The debate comes at a particularly sensitive juncture for U.S.-Pakistan relations, as Islamabad has sought to position itself as a neutral diplomatic bridge between Washington and Tehran, while maintaining close strategic ties to both Saudi Arabia and China. Graham and other U.S. lawmakers have openly questioned whether Pakistan can credibly serve as a neutral mediator while maintaining its hardline opposition to Israeli recognition.

For Pakistani policymakers, however, joining the accords would carry severe strategic and domestic risks: recognition could destabilize Pakistan’s longstanding close ties to Iran, spark mass domestic unrest, and unravel the carefully balanced regional neutrality Islamabad has cultivated for decades. “The Abraham Accords cannot be sustained through coercion or transactional pressure,” explained Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Iran and the UAE. Durrani argued that lasting regional peace requires “credible diplomacy, mutual security guarantees, de-escalation with Iran, and meaningful progress on Palestine” rather than external pressure tactics that shift responsibility onto regional governments.

Veteran Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir echoed this take, suggesting on social media platform X that Trump’s recent remarks stem from frustration over Pakistan and Saudi Arabia’s prior refusal to join the accords. Even so, many analysts caution against assuming that U.S. pressure will force a policy shift, noting that Pakistan has a long history of maintaining independent stances on core strategic issues – from its relationship with China to its approach to the Afghanistan war – even when facing intense pressure from Washington. A senior Islamabad-based security official noted that Trump himself acknowledged that some countries could ultimately opt out of the expanded framework, and Pakistan is widely seen as the most likely holdout.

While Pakistan insists all its foreign policy decisions are rooted in national sovereignty, most analysts agree that any future shift on the Israel issue will be heavily determined by Saudi Arabia’s position. As the custodian of Islam’s holiest sites and one of Pakistan’s closest and most consequential strategic partners, Riyadh’s policy choices carry enormous political and religious weight in Islamabad. The bilateral relationship extends far beyond diplomacy: Saudi Arabia has long provided Pakistan with critical financial support, large-scale foreign investment, employment for millions of Pakistani migrant workers, and deep defense cooperation. The two countries further cemented this partnership with a mutual security pact signed in September 2023, which stipulates that an attack on one will be considered an attack on the other – a commitment that underscores the depth of their strategic alignment.

Against this backdrop, most observers believe Riyadh’s approach to Israel will shape any future debate over normalization in Pakistan. Michael Kugelman, senior fellow for South Asia at The Atlantic Council, recently noted that if Saudi Arabia were to join the Abraham Accords, Pakistan would face significant pressure to revisit its stance. “But given where public sentiment stands, a Pakistani government that joins them would risk committing political suicide,” Kugelman warned in a post on X. Even so, Saudi Arabia has repeatedly stated that any normalization with Israel must be tied to a clear pathway to a two-state solution, a position that aligns almost perfectly with Pakistan’s existing stance.

If normalization was already politically out of reach for most Muslim-majority states before October 2023, the outbreak of the Gaza war has made the prospect even more remote. Prior to the Hamas attack on October 7 and Israel’s subsequent military response, the U.S. was actively courting Saudi Arabia to join the accords, with many analysts predicting a breakthrough was increasingly likely. A Saudi decision to normalize would have placed enormous pressure on Pakistan to revise its own position, given Riyadh’s influence across the Muslim world. But that prospect was derailed entirely by the war, which froze Saudi-Israeli normalization talks indefinitely.

As civilian casualties have mounted and footage of widespread destruction in Gaza has dominated media coverage across the Muslim world, public support for any engagement with Israel has plummeted. In Pakistan, the war has further hardened already firm public attitudes: a 2023 Gallup Pakistan survey found that 91 percent of Pakistanis sympathize with Palestinians in Gaza, while just 2 percent express sympathy for Israel. Religious groups, all mainstream political parties, and civil society organizations have framed the Gaza war as proof that normalization without a viable independent Palestinian state is both morally indefensible and politically unsustainable.

For the foreseeable future, Pakistan shows no sign of shifting its 77-year-old stance. While shifting regional dynamics and periodic external pressure have sparked repeated speculation about an impending policy change, Pakistan’s longstanding red line on Israeli recognition remains firmly in place.

A recent Financial Times investigation published Thursday has uncovered fresh financial evidence linking Iran International, the London-based Persian-language opposition news outlet, to Saudi Arabian state-backed media interests, challenging years of public denials from the outlet of any official foreign government ties. The revelations emerge against the already volatile backdrop of the February 2025 U.S. military attack on Iran, bringing new scrutiny to the network’s financial backing and editorial role in regional tensions.

The findings center on a $870 million debt-for-equity restructuring transaction completed by Volant Media UK, Iran International’s parent company, in December 2024, a move designed to stabilize the outlet’s finances after years of heavy operating losses. Internal corporate documents reviewed by the FT show that Volant Media has racked up more than $550 million in cumulative losses over the past five years, with outstanding debts totaling roughly $645 million to connected entities as of the end of the 2024 financial year.

Founded in 2017 by individuals billed as British-Saudi private investors, Iran International has grown into a large-scale operation with 700 employees, broadcasting into Iran via satellite, radio, and multiple social media platforms. The outlet describes itself as the most popular Persian-language news channel based outside of Iran, but it has long faced accusations from critics that it covertly promotes foreign-backed regime change in Iran and advocates for the return of the Iranian monarchy under Reza Pahlavi, the former shah’s son. For years, the outlet has repeatedly denied any formal or informal ties to either the Saudi or Israeli governments.

The December 2024 debt restructuring included a major corporate shakeup: Volant Media issued 648 million new shares valued at $870 million to settle outstanding debts, and all 50,000 original founding shares held by Adel Abdulkarim Alabdulkarim — a British-Saudi film executive who serves as Volant’s director and company secretary — were transferred to Info-Cast Cayman Limited, an offshore holding company registered in the Cayman Islands. The FT confirms Alabdulkarim retains significant control over Volant, with the power to appoint or remove a majority of the outlet’s board of directors, though Info-Cast Cayman is formally listed as Volant’s immediate parent company as of the end of 2024.

Corporate records from the Cayman Islands show Saleh Hussain Aldowais is the sole director of Info-Cast Cayman. A public figure matching that name holds the position of chief operations officer at Saudi Research and Media Group (SRMG), a major state-backed Saudi media corporation publicly traded on the Riyadh stock exchange. SRMG operates more than 30 global media outlets, including prominent publications such as Asharq Al-Awsat, Arab News, and Asharq News, the latter of which maintains a content partnership with Bloomberg News.

In a statement to the FT, an Iran International spokesperson pushed back on the implications of the corporate restructuring, saying the debt-for-equity swap did not involve any new capital injection into the outlet. The spokesperson repeated the outlet’s longstanding claim that “it has never received funding from any government or state entity – including Saudi Arabia or Israel – whether directly or indirectly.” The spokesperson added that any external professional roles held by individuals connected to the outlet are held in a personal capacity, are entirely separate from Iran International’s operations, and do not impact the network’s editorial, operational, or financial independence.

The FT’s revelations come amid heightened scrutiny of Iran International’s reporting in the lead-up to the U.S. war on Iran, which began on February 28, 2025. The outlet provided extensive coverage of nationwide anti-government protests that erupted in Iran earlier that year, triggered by a severe cost-of-living crisis exacerbated by long-standing U.S. economic sanctions. In January 2025, Iran International published a claim that more than 36,500 people had been killed in the Iranian government’s crackdown on the demonstrations — a death toll far higher than independent estimates published by Western governments and international human rights organizations. Days before launching military action against Iran, then-U.S. President Donald Trump publicly cited a casualty number nearly identical to that published by Iran International, though he never disclosed the source of his figure. A separate April 2025 New York Times report later confirmed that Israeli officials had lobbied the Trump administration to intervene militarily in Iran, pointing to the ongoing protests as justification. Israeli officials told U.S. leaders that the country’s intelligence service, Mossad, could help foment additional unrest to bring about the collapse of the Islamic Republic government.

A grassroots petition demanding scrutiny of Israeli-linked and pro-Israel lobbying activity in British politics has crossed the 100,000-signature threshold required for a mandatory parliamentary debate, forcing what advocates call a long-overdue conversation about foreign influence and democratic integrity in the UK. Scheduled for discussion on June 22, the petition has collected more than 116,000 signatures from UK citizens concerned that unregulated lobbying is skewing government policy, party priorities and public discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The petition’s text frames the debate as an urgent necessity, pointing to the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, continued Israeli expansion and repression in the West Bank, and the UK government’s aligned response to these events as evidence of the need to map the full scope of pro-Israel influence across British political institutions. Under UK parliamentary rules, any public petition hosted on the official government website that garners 10,000 signatures requires a formal written response from the government, while any crossing 100,000 signatures must be scheduled for a full debate in the House of Commons.

In its initial response to the petition, the UK government has already rejected calls for a dedicated investigation into pro-Israel lobbying, claiming existing regulatory frameworks already address foreign political interference. Critics push back against this claim, noting that the government’s flagship review into foreign financial interference—led by former senior diplomat Matthew Rycroft—explicitly focuses on Russian, Chinese and Iranian interference and does not mention Israeli influence at all.

Andy Kalil, the creator of the petition, dismissed the government’s position as empty deflection, arguing that clear conflicts of interest between pro-Israel lobbying donations and UK policy on Gaza, the West Bank, Iran and southern Lebanon amount to a major political scandal on par with some of the most high-profile controversies in recent British political history.

Documentation of unreported and disclosed pro-Israel donations underpins these concerns, particularly within the current ruling Labour Party. Data shows that more than half of Keir Starmer’s cabinet have received donations from pro-Israel lobbying groups. One of the most prominent of these donors, Trevor Chinn, contributed £175,000 between 2017 and 2020 to Labour Together, the influential think tank that spearheaded Starmer’s successful campaign to oust Jeremy Corbyn, a longtime critic of Israeli policy toward Palestinians, as Labour leader. Chinn’s donations granted him repeated private access to senior Labour figures, including current Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

That £700,000 in donations to Labour Together during Starmer’s leadership campaign went undeclared to the UK’s Electoral Commission, resulting in a £14,000 fine for the group. After the undeclared funding was exposed in journalist Paul Holden’s book *The Fraud*, reports emerged that Labour Together hired a public relations firm to investigate journalists who leaked the information, then attempted to destroy evidence of a coordinated smear campaign against the reporters.

The pro-Israel funding that flowed through Labour Together was a core component of a successful effort to unseat Corbyn and shift the Labour Party sharply to the right on Middle East policy. Since taking office, Starmer has stated publicly that Israel has a right to cut power and water access to Gaza, a position aligned with pro-Israel lobbying priorities. The think tank has also been linked to a series of coordinated “astroturf” campaigns fronted by groups like the Centre for Countering Digital Hate and Stop Funding Fake News—co-founded by senior Labour politicians Steve Reed and Imran Ahmed—designed to attack independent pro-Palestine media and push left-wing, pro-Corbyn figures out of the party.

Since Starmer took control of the party, one-third of newly elected Labour MPs have professional backgrounds in lobbying, and one-quarter have received direct funding from pro-Israel groups. Even ahead of the 2024 general election, Luke Akehurst, a former director of the pro-Israel advocacy group We Believe in Israel, was selected to run for a safe Labour seat in Durham, reflecting the movement’s deep penetration into party ranks.

Pro-Israel lobbying is not limited to the Labour Party, either. Roughly 80% of Conservative Members of Parliament are members of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), an organization that has provided more than £330,000 to fund 118 MPs’ trips to Israel across 160 separate visits.

Neve Gordon, an Israeli professor of international law at London’s Queen Mary University, argues that the double standard in how foreign influence is scrutinized in the UK reveals clear political alignment. While Russian, Chinese and Iranian interference are repeatedly framed as threats to British national interests and subject to intense regulatory and media scrutiny, Gordon says those countries exert far less actual influence on UK policy than the pro-Israel lobby, whose impact is consistently downplayed. Gordon explains that this double standard exists because the pro-Israel lobby is broadly aligned with long-standing British geopolitical interests, allowing the government to hide its own policy preferences behind the narrative of external lobbying influence.

Jeremy Corbyn, who faced years of pressure from pro-Israel groups during his time as Labour leader, confirmed that this pressure is both political and commercial. He recalled being asked during a private Parliamentary Labour Party meeting whether he would offer unconditional support for Israeli military action, and said he faced constant, enormous pressure across all areas of his leadership due to his dissenting views on Middle East policy.

Commercial lobbying is also a major factor: Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest private weapons manufacturer, held multiple meetings with UK Home Office officials and lobbied the government during its crackdown on Palestine Action, a direct action group that stages protests against the company’s UK facilities. The government ultimately proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organization—a decision that was later ruled unlawful by the UK High Court, though the government has continued to appeal the ruling.

Critics of the pro-Israel lobby also highlight its coordinated strategy of framing criticism of Israeli policy as antisemitism to silence dissent. Leah Levene and Jonathan Rosenhead of Jewish Voice for Liberation, a group representing anti-Zionist Jews in the UK, point to organizations like UK Lawyers for Israel, which has been accused of waging legal intimidation campaigns against activists who oppose Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, and Campaign Against Antisemitism, whose legal actions against pro-Palestine public figures were labeled “abusive” by a UK judge.

Levene and Rosenhead note that mainstream pro-Israel Jewish organizations like the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Office of the Chief Rabbi have successfully positioned themselves as the sole legitimate representatives of all Jewish people in the UK, erasing dissent from anti-Zionist Jews and flattening diverse community perspectives into a single pro-Israel consensus. When any public figure voices criticism of Israeli policy, these organizations come down heavily to silence that dissent, which in turn undermines open democratic debate by cutting off space for alternative viewpoints.

Hil Aked, author of *Friends of Israel: The Backlash Against Palestine Solidarity*, contextualizes the deep roots of pro-Israel lobbying in British political history, noting that the development of the Zionist movement has long been intertwined with the history of the British Empire. Aked explains that pro-Israel organizers have consistently framed their goals as aligned with British national interests to win support from successive UK governments. A key example, Aked argues, is the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which paved the way for the creation of the state of Israel and was drafted by the same generation of British politicians who passed the 1905 Aliens Act, the UK’s first modern anti-immigration law that blocked Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Europe from entering the UK. This historical context, Aked says, makes clear that Zionism and antisemitism are not incompatible, and that pro-Israel lobbying in the UK is not a foreign import—it has been actively fostered by successive British governments for more than a century.

For campaigners like Andrew Feinstein, co-founder of the anti-corruption non-profit Shadow World Investigations, open debate about the influence of the pro-Israel lobby is a core requirement for protecting British democracy. “Unless we are prepared to have a transparent, open and frank conversation not only about the Israel lobby, but about the influence of all money in politics, we will continue to have nothing better than the best democracy money can buy,” Feinstein said.

Exclusive new data obtained by Middle East Eye (MEE) has uncovered a striking electoral trend from England’s 7 May local elections: candidates who publicly backed Palestinian rights outperformed nominees from most major established parties, only trailing the right-wing Reform Party in win rates for contested seats.

The data confirms that public opposition to ongoing British policy cooperation with Israel remains a deeply resonant political issue across England, and that running on a clear pro-Palestine platform has emerged as a measurable predictor of electoral success in dozens of local races.

All candidates who signed the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC)’s widely supported “Pledge for Palestine” secured victory in 27% of the seats they contested. By comparison, Reform candidates posted a 30% win rate, while the Labour Party — the current national governing party — won just 22% of its contested seats, and the Liberal Democrats followed closely behind at 21%.

More than 1,600 candidates across the political spectrum signed the pledge, which commits elected officials to use their local office to advance Palestinian human rights. Signatories vow to take all appropriate steps to uphold the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, and to support efforts to secure accountability for what the pledge frames as Israel’s crimes of genocide, military occupation, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.

The pledge also requires candidates to prevent their local councils from complicity in or normalization of Israel’s alleged violations of international law. Key commitments include divesting council pension funds and other publicly administered assets from companies that enable these violations, and aligning local procurement policies with these goals.

Signatures came from a broad cross-section of political groups: more than 1,000 Green Party candidates, over 200 Labour candidates, more than 200 independent and small local party nominees, as well as a number of Liberal Democrat and Conservative candidates. Pro-Palestine candidates were particularly likely to run and win in seats with large youth, student, ethnic minority and Muslim populations.

One of the most high-profile successes came in Hackney, east London, where 31 Green candidates signed the pledge, including mayoral candidate Zoe Garbett, who won her race. The Greens secured a dominant majority on Hackney Council, taking 42 of the body’s 57 total seats. In neighboring Haringey, north London, the Greens surged to 28 council seats, overtaking Labour and coming just short of a full majority, with 26 of the party’s successful candidates having signed the pledge. Across the Midlands, in Bradford and Birmingham, dozens of independent and Green signatories won their local council contests.

Jeanine Hourani, a representative of Palestinian Youth Movement Britain — a partner in the Vote Palestine grassroots coalition that backed the pledge campaign — emphasized that the results confirm Palestine is a critical local issue for voters across England. “In the months leading up to election day, 16 local campaigns were launched, spending thousands of hours canvassing and organising dozens of local action days,” Hourani said. She added that the outcome highlights how essential grassroots community organizing is to the pro-Palestine movement, while sending a clear warning to mainstream elected officials: “Pledge signatories collectively outperformed almost every political party, and their successes will only grow as we look towards the 2029 general election.”

Asma Alam, a newly elected Green councillor for Manchester’s Burnage ward, who won her seat after signing the pledge, framed Palestinian rights as an inherent local government responsibility. “If councils have power over pensions, procurement and public money, then Palestine is absolutely a local government issue,” she said. Alam pointed to Greater Manchester’s pension fund, the largest local government pension pool in England, valued at more than £31 billion. Campaigners have identified nearly £905 million in fund investments tied to companies that they say are complicit in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. “We cannot pass motions, say the right things, and then carry on as normal,” Alam said. “For me, this is simple: I will not take a council pension while that pension is tied to Palestinian suffering. Divestment is not symbolic. It is about refusing to let public money bankroll injustice.”

The electoral success of pro-Palestine candidates comes against a backdrop of growing tension between the national Labour government and pro-Palestine activists within and outside the party. In January, Communities Secretary Steve Reed issued a warning to all Labour-run local councils that they could face legal action if they move to boycott Israeli businesses, directing councils to a 2016 national government ban on procurement boycotts targeting Israeli firms and companies that trade with Israel.

Over the past two years, dozens of local authorities have passed votes to boycott companies linked to Israeli war crimes, arms supplies to Israel, or economic activity in the occupied Palestinian territories. Multiple local council pension funds — including those in Islington, Lewisham, Wandsworth and Caerphilly — have already removed companies listed by the United Nations as operating in occupied Palestinian territories from their investment portfolios.

Prominent veteran pollster Sir John Curtis noted after the elections that the Green Party, which drew the largest share of pro-Palestine candidates, inflicted far more damage to Labour’s vote share across England than the Reform Party, a shift that experts attribute in part to the Green Party’s clear embrace of pro-Palestine policy.

MEE, which publishes independent, in-depth coverage of the Middle East, North Africa and global affairs, obtained the exclusive data for this report.

ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN — At a high-stakes summit of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) held Friday in Central Asia’s capital, top leaders from the bloc have issued a stark warning to member state Armenia: move forward with plans to seek European Union membership, and face immediate suspension from the Moscow-dominated economic alliance. The public rebuke amplifies already simmering tensions between the Kremlin and Armenia’s pro-Western government, just days ahead of a critical national parliamentary election that will shape the small Caucasus nation’s future geopolitical alignment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was joined by the heads of state of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan — the four full voting members of the 2015-founded single market bloc — in issuing the demand. The group emphasized that Armenia’s formal bid for EU membership creates “significant systemic risks” to the collective economic security of all EAEU members, who enjoy tariff-free movement of goods, capital, and labor across their shared market. They instructed top regional officials to prepare a comprehensive policy report by December detailing the procedural and economic implications of suspending Armenia’s EAEU membership.

In an unusual step that goes beyond standard bloc diplomacy, the four leaders also called on Armenian authorities to put the geopolitical choice to a national public vote: let Armenian voters decide between pursuing integration with the EU or retaining full membership in the Eurasian Economic Union. That call has already been rejected by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who has led the country since the 2018 Velvet Revolution and is currently campaigning to retain his office in the June 7 parliamentary election.

The escalation from EAEU leaders is no coincidence: it comes just over a week before Armenians head to the polls, with Pashinyan’s government having spent the past two years steadily shifting Armenia’s foreign policy away from Moscow and toward Western institutions. Last year, Yerevan signed a US-brokered peace deal with neighboring Azerbaijan, ending decades of armed conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Since then, Pashinyan has openly declared his government’s intention to pursue full EU membership, and already suspended Armenia’s participation in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Moscow-dominated regional security bloc.

This deliberate westward pivot has enraged the Kremlin, which has long viewed Armenia as a key ally in the South Caucasus. Putin has repeatedly warned Pashinyan that moving closer to the EU would bring severe economic consequences for Armenia. In recent weeks, Moscow has already taken preliminary punitive steps: it has threatened to cut off supplies of heavily subsidized natural gas — a critical energy input for Armenia’s economy — and imposed a full ban on imports of Armenia’s signature brandy, as well as fresh fruit and vegetable products. Analysts widely view these measures as direct interference in the upcoming election, designed to turn voters against Pashinyan and his pro-Western agenda.

Putin doubled down on that position Friday, stressing that Armenia cannot maintain membership in both blocs simultaneously. He warned that if Armenia withdraws from the EAEU, the country could see its total gross domestic product drop by as much as 14% as it loses access to the large, tariff-free Eurasian market. In comments that carried clear historical weight, Putin also drew a direct parallel between the current standoff with Armenia and the 2014 crisis in Ukraine. At that time, Ukraine’s decision to move forward with an association agreement with the EU led to the ouster of Moscow’s allied president, Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the outbreak of a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, and ultimately the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — the largest European military conflict since World War II.

Pashinyan has pushed back against the Kremlin’s warnings, arguing that for the immediate future, Armenia can balance its existing EAEU membership with deepening political and economic cooperation with the European Union. As campaigning enters its final stretch, the election is set to deliver a clear verdict on whether Armenians will back their government’s push westward, or pivot back to closer alignment with Russia.

Across the sidewalks outside Tunis’s Court of First Instance, small, steady gatherings have become a routine sight in recent weeks. demonstrators from varying walks of life gather here: some demand safeguards for the democratic freedoms Tunisians have long fought for, while others push back against what they label arbitrary administrative suspensions that target their work. What unites all these protesters is a shared concern: the steady erosion of civic space in Tunisia, a shift that many activists and regional observers warn is growing into a permanent new reality.

Over the past 24 months, dozens of non-governmental organizations across this North African Maghreb nation have been hit with 30-day administrative suspensions and court-ordered threats of full dissolution. The crackdown has accelerated in recent months, with some of the country’s most prominent and respected civil society groups landing in authorities’ crosshairs.

Among the targeted organizations is the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH), Africa’s oldest human rights group and a core member of the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet. That quartet was awarded the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for its foundational work steering Tunisia through its post-uprising democratic transition. Also targeted is Belgium-based Lawyers Without Borders (ASF). The Al Khatt foundation, owner of award-winning independent investigative media outlet Inkyfada, has also faced the same punitive measures. Inkyfada was initially suspended for 30 days and is now facing full dissolution, with a critical court hearing scheduled for Monday.

“It all started in October 2025 with a sudden, one-month suspension designed to silence our publications,” Manel Lassoued, Inkyfada’s editorial director, told Middle East Eye. “But we didn’t stop. We kept working and appealed the decision, trusting in our fundamental right to a defense and an impartial justice system.”

Lassoued’s outlet is far from alone. The Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, Aswat Nissa, Nawaat, the International Commission of Jurists and the World Organisation Against Torture are just a handful of the additional groups that have received court-ordered suspensions. The crackdown comes against a backdrop of steady erosion of the political and civil liberties gained after the 2011 Tunisian uprising, a shift that began five years ago when President Kais Saied seized sweeping executive power.

On 25 July 2021, Saied dissolved the sitting government, froze parliamentary activity, and began ruling by decree—a move that rights organizations have characterized as a steady slide toward authoritarian rule. He later pushed through a new constitution that vastly expanded presidential authority, while increasing pressure on independent institutional checkpoints including the Supreme Judicial Council, which has been effectively stripped of all regulatory and oversight powers.

This sweeping institutional overhaul has been paired with a wide-ranging campaign of arrests and administrative harassment targeting civil society groups working across nearly every sector, from human rights documentation and migration policy to anti-corruption investigation and social justice advocacy. Current reports indicate that roughly 600 organizations are now under formal government investigation.

Tunisian authorities justify the crackdown by framing the measures as a crackdown on suspicious foreign funding and a defense of national interests. But international rights groups including Amnesty International dismiss this framing as a transparent excuse to intimidate independent NGOs and further narrow space for civic action.

Amnesty’s analysis finds that what began as low-level intimidation, arbitrary regulatory restrictions, asset freezes and politically motivated prosecutions of NGO staff has now escalated into a coordinated effort to use the country’s judiciary to shutter independent civil society organizations entirely. Under current Tunisian law—specifically Decree-Law No 88, which regulates association activity—groups face a three-step punitive process: an initial administrative warning, followed by temporary suspension, and ultimately full dissolution. Multiple prominent organizations have already reached the final, permanent dissolution stage, including Inkyfada and Mnemty, a Tunis-based anti-racism association. Mnemty’s founder, Saadia Mosbah, has been in detention for two years and was recently sentenced to eight years in prison on financial misconduct charges that supporters call politically motivated.

Lamine Benghazi, head of advocacy for the Euro-Mediterranean region at ASF, told Middle East Eye that the crackdown extends far beyond individual organizations. “The entire institutional framework inherited from the democratic transition has been targeted,” he explained. “But it is not only about institutions: these authorities want to erase the entire political system. They are trying to erase an entire political ecosystem – one that includes the media, associations and trade unions.”

The April 2026 suspension of LTDH sparked widespread public outrage, with hundreds of demonstrators gathering on Tunis’s central Avenue Bourguiba to protest the decision. LTDH was one of the last independent organizations still granted access to Tunisian prisons, where dozens of dissidents, journalists and political opponents are currently detained.

“We consider the suspension to be a political decision disguised as a judicial one as it comes within a context of restricting civic space and targeting independent organisations that are fighting for human rights in Tunisia,” LTDH president Bassem Trifi told Amnesty International. “Beyond targeting human rights organisations, human rights and freedoms are being severely undermined, especially the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.”

Sihem Bensedrine, one of Tunisia’s most prominent veteran civil society leaders and a journalist who previously led the post-2011 Truth and Dignity Commission (IVD), was among the protesters who turned out to support LTDH. The IVD was the independent body tasked with investigating systemic human rights abuses committed under former presidents Habib Bourguiba and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, as well as crimes committed during the 2011 uprising that ousted Ben Ali. Bensedrine was arrested in August 2024 on charges of falsifying the IVD’s final public report. She was released only in February 2025, after a months-long hunger strike that severely damaged her health. She still carries the physical and psychological scars of what she calls unjust detention, and currently faces multiple additional trials linked to her work with the IVD.

“They are using new repressive techniques: they do not directly shut down associations, they suspend them,” she told Middle East Eye. “And this is even more insidious than simply banning activities, because it aims to spread fear and create a reflex of self-censorship.”
Bensedrine, who has been politically active since the Bourguiba era and has survived multiple periods of detention under past authoritarian regimes, says authoritarian control has reached unprecedented levels under Saied. “I had the feeling that, for the current regime, imprisoning people who are considered troublesome has become a kind of royal lettre de cachet: they lock you up and you never get out,” she said. “I felt that I could remain there for a very long time. At a certain point I told myself: ‘No, I cannot accept this any more.’ There was absolutely no reason for me to be in prison.”

As Bensedrine faced prosecution, a wider wave of arrests swept up other leading civil society and media figures, including prominent lawyer and television commentator Sonia Dahmani, and veteran columnist and radio commentator Mourad Zeghidi. In both cases, authorities relied on Decree-Law 54 of 2022, a controversial law the government has repeatedly used to prosecute people accused of spreading “false information” deemed harmful to public security. Their arrests have become emblematic of the government’s growing reliance on the judiciary to silence critical public voices.

Dahmani was released in November 2025 after 18 months in detention, but was again sentenced to two years in prison earlier this week; she has filed an appeal against the new ruling. Zeghidi remains behind bars, facing additional charges including money laundering and corruption that his legal team describe as baseless and politically motivated.

The steady erosion of press freedom in Tunisia is reflected in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which ranks Tunisia 137th out of 180 countries, down seven spots from its 2025 ranking of 129th. “This decline reflects a deeper trend that RSF has been systematically documenting,” Oussama Bouagila, RSF’s regional advocacy officer and deputy bureau chief for North Africa, told Middle East Eye. “RSF recorded 39 prosecutions against journalists based on laws unrelated to journalism. President Saied has repeatedly called on public media to align themselves with what he describes as a war of national liberation.”
Bouagila noted that the 2011 revolution opened an unprecedented era of media freedom in Tunisia, but that progress was abruptly halted after the July 2021 power grab and the subsequent concentration of all political authority in Saied’s hands.

The case of Inkyfada stands as one of the most visible examples of this ongoing crackdown. Widely recognized across Tunisia and the international community for its hard-hitting investigations into Tunisian politics and society—including groundbreaking reporting on abuses targeting the sub-Saharan migrant community after Saied labeled migrants a “demographic threat”—the outlet remains a rare independent space for thousands of Tunisian readers.

Ahead of Inkyfada’s 1 June dissolution hearing, Lassoued emphasized that the outlet has complied fully with all Tunisian regulatory requirements. “Looking ahead to 1 June, let us be clear: we have by no means broken the law or the norms of civil society work in Tunisia. We have done everything by the book, including the consistent declaration of all foreign funding. We expect nothing less than justice,” she said. Lassoued added that the crackdown represents a fundamental shift in the country’s political trajectory: “What we are witnessing in Tunisia is no longer just a shift in attitude; it is a systematic, structural crackdown on independent media and civil society.”