On the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
5 December 2008, Cairo
Release of New Report on the State of Human Rights in the Arab Region in 2008:
From Exporting Terrorism to Exporting Repression
Main Points of Report:
Grave Deterioration of Human Rights while Reform Faces a Dead End
• Advocates of reform and respect for human right are the primary targets of repression
• Liberators have become executioners and “weapons of resistance” increasingly used against innocent civilians
• Rising religious extremism after ruling regimes ally with Salafis
• Islamists no longer central target of repression
From Exporting Terrorism to Exporting Repression
• Arab governments turn the UN and Arab League into platforms for exporting repression
• The Arab League supports war criminals, anti-democratic coups, and restrictions on freedom of expression
PRESS RELEASE
The first Annual Report on human rights and the Arab region by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), entitled From Exporting Terrorism to Exporting Repression, was released on the 5th of December, 2008, in anticipation of the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The report will be discussed next week at the European Parliament in Brussels, and at high-level round table talks in Barcelona and Geneva. CIHRS presented the initial findings of the report in a workshop in Brussels last month after an invitation from the European Parliament’s human rights committee.
In this report the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) finds that the status of human rights in the Arab region in 2008 has increasingly worsened. Attacks on the limited public and political liberties that exist have escalated in most countries in the region.
CIHRS notes that, while Islamists are less frequently targeted, there is an increase in repression of reformists, human rights defenders and activists, the independent press and electronic media, leaders of protest movements, and of other forms of political action in Arab countries. This has been accompanied by earnest attempts to export increasing domestic repression outside the Arab region through the international mechanisms of the UN and the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Initiative. Arab governments have made large individual and concerted efforts to silence independent Non-Governmental Organizations or erase them from public visibility completely, while simultaneously undermining International Human Rights Mechanisms (IHRM) of their ability to promote human rights and provide protection for victims of rights violations. Furthermore, these states have promoted and created resolutions and policies at IHRMs that are designed to undermine the very rights and freedoms these mechanisms are designed to promote.
Lebanon and Egypt, with Charles Malik and Mahmoud Azmi leading their respective State delegations before the UN Commission on Human Rights, played a vital role in the birth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and in the creation and promotion of mechanisms to protect Human Rights in the years that followed. Yet these same mechanisms are currently being greatly undermined and slowly dismantled by the actions of Arab states, led by Egypt, Algeria and other Arab authorities, including Palestine.
The aim of the report is to document and analyze the situation in 12 Arab countries and territories: Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Syria, Iraq, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Sudan, Lebanon, and Yemen.
The report also devotes several sections to documenting and analyzing the impact of the political and religious culture within the region on the situation of human rights there. And also attempts to evaluate the performance of Arab governments within the UN Human Rights Council, Euro-Mediterranean cooperation agreements, and the League of Arab States.
The report notes that in 2008 the League of Arab States has become more expressive of authoritarian tendencies than any time in the past. It joined the leaders of the military coup in Mauritania in undermining the right of the Mauritanian people to democratically choose its leaders, and it rose in support of the Sudanese regime as the latter sought to evade accountability for the ongoing massacres in Darfur and in preventing Sudanese officials from appearing before the International Criminal Court. It has also become a platform from which to launch attacks on freedom of expression, particularly attacks on satellite and electronic media.
The report states that the Palestinian people have been a target of grave abuses, carried out in the shadow of the continuing criminal practices of the Israeli Occupational Forces and the bloody internal conflict between Hamas and Fatah. The report also notes that for the first time, the number of Palestinians killed as a result of internal fighting has exceeded the number killed as a result of Israeli attacks. Fatah and Hamas have outdone one another in their maltreatment of prisoners from the other side, engaging in the worst types of abusive practices.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah has turned the weapon of “resistance” against the Lebanese people during the brief war it launched with allied parties in areas of Beirut and al-Jabal in May 2008, taking the country to the brink of a Shiite-Sunni civil war. The threat of such a war looms as long as Hezbollah refuses to submit to the sovereignty of the Lebanese elected government, and take a more practical position amid growing calls from Sunni circles to militarize and acquire arms to create a balance with Hezbollah.
The report notes that Iraq remains the site of the gravest human rights abuses, which have led to the deaths of thousands of civilians, whether killed by American occupation forces, the Iraqi authorities, ongoing terrorist activity, or as part of the continued ethnic and communal violence and conflict. Iraq is facing even further deterioration: Political and security arrangements are not standing on a firm foundation,, and rules for an equitable distribution of power and oil wealth have not been agreed upon. This may open additional fronts in the war or lead to the partition of Iraq.
The report states that the Sudanese regime has shown a blatant disregard for the lives and suffering of the Sudanese people and for relevant international and regional resolutions, continuing its brutal attacks on villages and refugee centers in Darfur; practices which have continued even after the President was indicted by the International Criminal Court. The regime has also continued to terrorize every national citizen or organization that refused to remain silent about the ongoing massacres in Darfur.
Although the Yemeni President declared an end to the war in the Saada province, which has left hundreds of dead and more than 100,000 homeless, the fighting is likely to resume as it has done four times in the past,. This is particularly likely given that the President’s decision was not accompanied by the release of the vast majority of people detained or disappeared during the conflict or any release of information concerning their fate.
The report notes increased ethnic, religious, and sectarian tensions in several countries, especially in light of systematic discrimination against Shiites in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and confrontations with Kurds in Syria. It also points to rising sectarian tension in Egypt due to growing religious bigotry, fostered by a climate in which religion is exploited politically by both the government and Islamist groups. At the same time, the government refuses to address long-standing problems that intensify discrimination against Copts and other groups. The report also notes that religious freedoms are increasingly subject to repressive measures in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria.
The report points to a general lack of independence and guarantees of justice in judicial systems throughout the region, as well as the plethora of exceptional courts. Democracy advocates, human rights defenders, minorities, bloggers, and journalists have all been subject to unfair trials in most countries examined by the report. In addition, those responsible for torture and grave police abuses are usually not subject to any form of judicial accountability and punishment.
The report concludes that the path to the peaceful and democratic rotation and change of power and governance in Arab countries is almost impossible unless real change occurs. It is questionable whether free elections can be conducted in countries suffering from chronic political crises, like Lebanon, or in the midst of armed conflict like in Sudan or with the inability of political parties in Iraq to reach an agreement on municipal election laws. Meanwhile, authorities in Algeria amended the Constitution to allow the President to run for a third term. In Tunisia, the regime continues to manipulate the Constitution to keep certain figures out of the presidential race. This makes Tunisian presidential elections closer to a referendum then a real election; the same is true in Egypt and Algeria.
The report notes that political and civil rights in Egypt have been greatly eroded after the authorities used all possible means, legal and illegal, to disqualify the majority of candidates from the Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition parties from running in local elections, and to prevent them from filing out their candidacy papers. The elections themselves were carried out amid a broad arrest campaign targeting the Muslim Brothers and their candidates.
Although the most recent parliamentary elections in Morocco were somewhat better, they reflected a lack of confidence by the citizens in the ability of the political parties and the parliament to address the deteriorating living standards of the population as long as real decision-making power remains with the monarchy.
The report states that the majority of ruling Arab regimes are gradually losing their political legitimacy as a result of their long-standing failure to resolve development problems and advance Arab societies, and for their refusal to base their legitimacy on free democratic choice. In fact, they are seeking to repair their tattered legitimacy by allying with Salafis, a move which only strengthens religious extremism and portends to the further erosion of human rights.
Contact:
Moataz ElFegiery (Cairo), moataz@cihrs.org +20 (0)12 342 9991
Ziad Abdel Tawab (Cairo), abdeltawab@cihrs.org +20 (0) 12 3777 100
Jeremie D. Smith (Geneva), jsmith@cihrs.org +41(0) 76 717 24 77
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