Photo Essays

The high-profile case of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi is not the only one of its kind. Throughout the Arab world, writers, journalists and activists are being locked up for expressing critical opinions

Nowruz is one of the oldest celebrations in the world. It has been a fixture on the cultural calendar in many regions for more than 2,500 years. It marks the beginning of spring and also the change of seasons in the Iranian solar calendar. Sharam Ahad offers his impressions of the celebrations.

Milad Alaei worked for Iranian news agencies from 2009 to 2014. His less than flattering pictures of everyday life in Iran led to him being fired. Threatened with a trial, he moved to Austria in 2015. Milad Alaei gave the photographs that he had been forced to withdraw or that hadn't been published in Iran to Deutsche Welle

The earthen fortified city of Ait-Ben-Haddou is regarded as an important part of Morocco's cultural heritage. Severe storms have damaged the site, however, and repairing it is difficult and expensive. Impressions from Anne Allmeling

With his photo project "This Place", Frederic Brenner sought to provide a different insight into Israel and the West Bank. As part of the project, 12 international photographers present landscape and portrait photos that aim to contribute to the observer's understanding of the conflict region. The exhibition runs at the Dox Center for Contemporary Art in Prague until 3 March 2015. By Felix Koltermann

Germany ranks as the second most popular destination for immigrants directly after the USA. The exhibition "Increasingly colourful: Germany, land of immigration" at the Haus der Geschichte (House of History of the Federal Republic of Germany) in Bonn provides an overview of the past 60 years of immigration to Germany. Impressions by Hans Joachim Hennig

After the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak and the coup against his successor, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, many Egyptians were relieved and delighted that Abdul Fattah al-Sisi was at the helm. Civil society, however, has paid a high price. By Diana Hodali

In the autumn of 1989, Dresden was one of the East German cities that became known worldwide for the peaceful "Monday demonstrations" against the government of the GDR that precipitated the fall of the Berlin Wall a few months later. One of the slogans chanted by the protesters at the time was "Wir sind das Volk" (We are the people). Twenty-five years on, a very different movement began organising weekly Monday demonstrations and chanting "Wir sind das Volk". In this photo gallery, we chart some of the reactions to Pegida and the developments relating to this anti-immigration and anti-Islam movement.

France is still reeling from the events of a turbulent week in which 12 people were shot dead in an attack on the satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo", a policewoman was killed and four hostages lost their lives in an attack on a kosher supermarket. In this photo gallery, we show some of the key images of the past week from Paris and around the world.

Back in 2014, some 450 Bedouin Palestinian families (a total of about 3,400 individuals) in 13 villages in the Al-Maleh area of the West Bank were facing eviction by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). As recent events show, little has changed. By Mohammad Alhaj