CIHRS 11th Regional Forum of the Human Rights Movement: What have the Governments offered for Reform in the Arab World?

In collaboration with the Moroccan Organization for Human Rights, and in coordination with the Euro-Mediterranean Network for Human Rights and the International Federation for Human Rights, Cairo Institute for human Rights Studies (CIHRS) holds 11th Regional Forum of the Human Rights Movement (the Second Civil Forum parallel to the Arab Summit) in Rabat from 17-19 February, 2006 under the title “Outcome of Two Years of Reform in the Arab World”. The forum will be attended by about 100 participants, and 50 NGOs from 15 countries: Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, KSA, UAE, Bahrain, and Jordan. Among the participants, there will also be a number of writers, academia, and parliamentarians, as well as representatives to some international organizations in 5 countries. The forum will submit its recommendations to the Secretariat of the League of Arab States (LAS), in order to be later presented to the Arab Summit, scheduled on the 28th of March, 2006 in Khartoum. The recommendations will also be made available to the public.
The Forum, supported by the European commission, will inaugurate its proceedings by a speech from the LAS, and the NGOs sponsoring the Forum. 50 participants from 18 countries will make the presentations and commentaries.

The following issues would be discussed throughout the sessions:

• Assessment of the democratic reform in the Arab World since the Arab Summit held in Tunisia in 2004.
• Assessment of the contribution of the election took place in the Arab World in moving forward the process of reform.
• The ineffective judicial systems in the Arab World, and how that leads to fleeing the accountability.
• Evalution of the role of political and civil society in the course of political reform .
• Assessment of effectiveness of the international initiatives for reform.
• The developments on the status of human rights in Darfur in Sudan, Iraq and Palestine and the future of democracy in light of the winning of Hamas in the last elections.

Its noting worthy that this Forum is supplementing the cumulative constant effort made by civil society NGOs, especially in the last two years, with respect to the issue of reform, including inter alia, the First Civil Forum parallel to the Arab Summit (Beirut/ March 2004), and its Second Independence Document; the Regional Conference on the Priorities and Mechanisms of Reform in the Arab World (Cairo/July 2004), and its document entitled “Priorities and Mechanisms for Reform in the Arab World”. In this regard comes also the joint document issued in June 2004 by CIHRS, the International Federation for Human Rights, and the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network , in the occasion of the US-EU Summit in Dublin. Adding to that the final communiqué by the Civil Forum held in the sideline of the preparatory meeting for the Forum for Future (New York/ September 2004). As well as the forum held in the sideline to the G8 Forum for the Future (Rabat, December 2004), and its Rabat Declaration which included recommendations to the First Forum for the Future, the civil society meetings throughout 2005 in Aman and Qatar to prepare for the Forum for the Future (Bahrain 2005); the Regional Conference on the Democratic Changes and the Role of Civil Society (Sana&#146a/ September 2005), and lastly the two conferences on the assessment of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership in Cairo in December 2005 and January 2006.