This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (July 2012) This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous.Find sources: "Alees Samaan" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Alees Thomas Samaan (sometimes spelled as Alice) is a Bahraini politician and former ambassador to the United Kingdom. She was the first woman to chair a parliament in the Middle East when in April 2005 she chaired Bahrain's upper house of parliament, the Consultative Council.^[1] Samaan was one of four women to sit in the Consultative Council.

She belongs to the native Bahraini Christian community.

In March 2015, Samaan was awarded the Grassroot Diplomat Initiative Honouree for making it her priority to reconcile the people and bring them together.^[2] She became the first female Gulf Cooperation Council Ambassador to the UK. In 2002, Ms. Samaan became one of six women appointed to the Shura Council and later made history in the Arab world in 2005 by becoming the first woman to chair a session of Parliament in the region. Covered by the global media, the incident was viewed as a sign of gradual progress towards a more open democracy in Bahrain.

References

External links