Al-Hudood: the Onion-style website poking fun at the Middle East
Satirical news site set up by Isam Uraiqat uses black humour to take aim at region’s absurdities
On the face of it the Middle East’s civil wars, sectarian strife, displacement on an unprecedented scale, political upheaval and terrorism do not lend themselves easily to comedy.
Then again, the absurdities of a region governed by hereditary republics and tinpot police states, where clerics condemn Pokémon as idolatrous, have long fuelled nihilistic jokes and a tradition of political humour that goes back centuries.
So when Isam Uraiqat launched an Arabic satirical news site in 2013 called (The Limits), with, it could have gone either way. The site mocked political leaders, Middle Eastern social habits and clerics. Its tagline, “towards some sort of future”, neatly encapsulated a region that seemed perpetually in flux.
