Across the Middle East and North Africa, academic freedom and freedom of expression in their various forms have been and remain under threat, if to different degrees, depending on place, time, and context. For countries where there is ongoing armed conflict or political instability, it has been especially challenging to gain an informed, comprehensive understanding of the circumstances of scholars, academic life, and the higher education sector more generally.

In an effort to both fill this lacuna in our knowledge and advocate on behalf of our colleagues in countries where, until now, we have been less engaged, the Middle East and North Africa wing of the Middle East Studies Association’s Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF-MENA) organized a panel at the November 2025 annual Middle East Studies Association (MESA) meeting in which we brought together scholars with expertise in the politics of four such countries—Iraq, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen—who have close familiarity with the academic community and the challenges that scholars, students, pedagogues, and researchers face. Each presenter—Marsin Alshammary (Iraq), Nada Ali (Sudan), Keith Watenpaugh (Syria), and Stacey Philbrick Yadav (Yemen)—was asked to provide an overview of the current political context in their country of expertise, elaborate on the status of academic freedom and scholarly engagement, and finally, suggest ways in which CAF-MENA could engage more effectively in advocacy there given the context and constraints.

The presentations were so informative and enlightening that the convenors of the panel, Laurie Brand (former chair of CAF) and Miriam Lowi (chair of CAF-MENA), proposed to Hoda Yousef, the editor of the Review of Middle East Studies, that they be published together as a roundtable under a special academic freedom rubric. We are pleased to share with the broader MESA community this very rich set of essays. In addition to their cogent descriptions of the political landscape and the challenges and constraints faced by the academic community, especially instructive, for the purposes of CAF’s work, are their suggestions for interventions on behalf of the scholarly community that would be more context-appropriate and therefore, potentially more effective. Among them we note the following recommendations.

In the transitional, postconflict environments of Iraq and Syria, Marsin Alshammary and Keith Watenpaugh address the matter of government interference in scholarly inquiry and engagement. They encourage that the freedom to ask (even difficult) questions, conduct intensive research, and present critical analyses on all sorts of topics be supported and protected, with the understanding that knowledge production through the freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression will contribute to positive outcomes for each country as it rebuilds. Even in the ongoing conflict environment of Sudan, where universities have been destroyed and students and scholars displaced, Nada Ali underscores the vital need to protect both university autonomy and the freedom to engage in intellectual inquiry and exchange. And although she decries the multiple constraints that students and scholars face in Sudan today, she notes various creative efforts currently underway to continue studying, teaching, and conducting research. Similarly, Stacey Philbrick Yadav points to a recent “counterintuitive development” in one province of Yemen, an unintended consequence of internal displacement that is positively impacting the higher education sector there. Most notably, she proposes a broader, more expansive understanding of academic freedom to incorporate the rich terrain of intellectual engagement and knowledge production beyond the academy. Whether we refer to it, instead, as “scholarly freedom” or “intellectual freedom,” it would include and apply to the vast numbers of producers of knowledge in each country who operate outside of universities: among them, the host of prolific, local researchers consulting for and employed by NGOs working in Yemen and, as identified by Keith Watenpaugh, members of ethnic and religious minorities in Syria who have historically faced restricted access to university education and employment. Finally, all four authors suggest ways in which CAF could support local students, scholars, and researchers in their efforts to rebuild the higher education sector in Iraq, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

We are confident that these compelling articles will inspire greater attention to these countries and their scholarly communities. MESA’s Committee of Academic Freedom is greatly appreciative of the insights they provide.