document · Interview
Iyad El-Baghdadi (Palestinian-Norwegian pro-democracy activist; founder, Kawaakibi Foundation) — interview with The New Arab, Aug 2020: the Arab Spring digital-activist's "counter-revolution" thesis — "even before the coup in Egypt in 2013, it was clear that my country's [the UAE's] government was leading the counter revolution" — and Twitter as "an alternative parliament for the Arabs" wearing away "the rusty narratives of the region's dictators."
English 
United Arab Emirates 2020-08-07 Tier 2 — primary or translation
Politician: Iyad El-Baghdadi
Original source: https://www.newarab.com/features/iyad-el-baghdadi-pro-democracy-activist-taking-arab-autocrats
Content
Even before the coup in Egypt in 2013, it was clear that my country's government was leading the counter revolution.
Twitter became an alternative parliament for the Arabs, a hangout for native Arabic speakers and thinkers. We started to wear away at the rusty narratives of the region’s dictators. English translation
[Source is English (The New Arab interview); confirmed verbatim against the fetched page.] Declared positions of Iyad El-Baghdadi — a Palestinian-Norwegian writer, public intellectual and pro-democracy activist who rose to prominence during the 2011 Arab Spring (he translated protest speeches to English on Twitter from the UAE, was later expelled and gained asylum in Norway), founder of the Kawaakibi Foundation (a MENA human-rights organization) and co-author of "The Middle East Crisis Factory." He is best known for the COUNTER-REVOLUTION thesis: that the Arab Spring's democratic openings were crushed by a regional counter-revolution led by the Gulf autocracies — pointing to his own former host, the UAE ("my country's government was leading the counter revolution"), and to Saudi Arabia under Mohammed bin Salman (whose online-disinformation machine he documented, and who — per a CIA warning — had threatened him after the Khashoggi killing). He frames digital free expression as "an alternative parliament for the Arabs" that erodes "the rusty narratives of the region's dictators," and calls for a new generation of independent, networked intellectuals to build sustainable democratic alternatives. This is the pan-Arab, exiled LIBERAL-INTERNATIONALIST / pro-democracy-strategist pole — distinct from the inside-Egypt revolutionary left (Alaa Abd El-Fattah), the secular-feminist left (Yanar Mohammed) and the human-rights defenders (al-Khawaja, Mazen Darwish), in that he theorizes the region-wide authoritarian counter-revolution and the strategy to defeat it. [Axes: democracy (pro-democracy; anti-authoritarian counter-revolution), civil-liberties (free expression; anti-censorship / anti-disinformation), regime-stance (against the Gulf-autocrat order — esp. the UAE and Saudi Arabia / MBS).] How to cite this document
This is a third-party primary text. Cite the original author and source — Tayyar hosts the verbatim excerpt for research access, but Tayyar is not the author. The "Retrieved via" line at the bottom records your access path through Tayyar for transparency.
In-text
(El-Baghdadi, 2020) El-Baghdadi, I.. (2020). Iyad El-Baghdadi (Palestinian-Norwegian pro-democracy activist; founder, Kawaakibi Foundation) — interview with The New Arab, Aug 2020: the Arab Spring digital-activist's "counter-revolution" thesis — "even before the coup in Egypt in 2013, it was clear that my country's [the UAE's] government was leading the counter revolution" — and Twitter as "an alternative parliament for the Arabs" wearing away "the rusty narratives of the region's dictators.". newarab.com. Retrieved July 28, 2026, from https://www.newarab.com/features/iyad-el-baghdadi-pro-democracy-activist-taking-arab-autocrats
El-Baghdadi, Iyad. 2020. "Iyad El-Baghdadi (Palestinian-Norwegian pro-democracy activist; founder, Kawaakibi Foundation) — interview with The New Arab, Aug 2020: the Arab Spring digital-activist's "counter-revolution" thesis — "even before the coup in Egypt in 2013, it was clear that my country's [the UAE's] government was leading the counter revolution" — and Twitter as "an alternative parliament for the Arabs" wearing away "the rusty narratives of the region's dictators."." newarab.com. Accessed July 28, 2026. https://www.newarab.com/features/iyad-el-baghdadi-pro-democracy-activist-taking-arab-autocrats.
@misc{doc-document-86ccf3af-0401-467c-aa07-d9a5a9462826,
author = {El-Baghdadi, Iyad},
title = {Iyad El-Baghdadi (Palestinian-Norwegian pro-democracy activist; founder, Kawaakibi Foundation) — interview with The New Arab, Aug 2020: the Arab Spring digital-activist's "counter-revolution" thesis — "even before the coup in Egypt in 2013, it was clear that my country's [the UAE's] government was leading the counter revolution" — and Twitter as "an alternative parliament for the Arabs" wearing away "the rusty narratives of the region's dictators."},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-08-07},
howpublished = {Online; hosted at newarab.com},
url = {https://www.newarab.com/features/iyad-el-baghdadi-pro-democracy-activist-taking-arab-autocrats},
urldate = {2026-07-28},
note = {Retrieved via Tayyar at https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/documents/86ccf3af-0401-467c-aa07-d9a5a9462826},
} Retrieved via Tayyar: https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/documents/86ccf3af-0401-467c-aa07-d9a5a9462826 on July 28, 2026. Tayyar is a research host for primary sources, not the author of this document.