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Libert@s online: Issue 3
January 2002

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Rights & Democracy on an Exploratory Mission in the Middle East

The President of Rights & Democracy made a week-long trip to the Middle East in January 2002. Accompanied by consultant Rachad Antonius, a specialist on Middle East affairs, Warren Allmand visited groups working to promote human rights and democracy in Cairo, Jerusalem and Ramallah. The objective of the mission was to make an initial assessment of the situation and evaluate a possible role for Rights & Democracy in the promotion of human rights and democratic development in the Middle East.

Activists and scholars raised with Rights & Democracy the historical lack of independent democracies in the Middle East. The more democratic states, they said, tend to be satellites of the West, whereas the more independent states tend to be less democratic and influenced by Islamic fundamentalists. They identified a need to strengthen the development of political parties.

In Egypt, Rights & Democracy met with the family and lawyer of imprisoned human rights activist Saad Eddine Ibrahim (www.ibnkhaldun.org), as well as with groups including the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Research (www.cihrs.org) and the Legal Research Centre, a women's rights group that is following up on the UN Beijing conference. Mr. Allmand also met with resource persons on the situation of the Copts of Egypt and with members of the Supreme Constitutional Court. From these meetings, a pattern emerged of relative independence of certain Egyptian institutions, but heavy government restrictions placed on organizations of civil society including human rights groups. Groups reported that some grassroots groups, including trade unions, have been infiltrated by Islamic political activists on the one hand and on the other are restricted by government action. Another concern identified was the absence of government mechanisms to monitor compliance with ratified international human rights instruments.

In Jerusalem and Ramallah, Rights & Democracy met with a variety of human rights groups, both Palestinian and Israeli, including B'tselem (www.btselem.org), the Alternative Information Centre (www.alternativenews.org), the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (www.phrmg.org), Muwatin (www.muwatin.org) and Badil (www.badil.org), to name just a few. Those encountered articulated a very lucid vision of how the military occupation of Palestinian lands and all its policies, hand in hand with the lack of democracy in the Palestinian Authority's institutions conspire to produce a series of arduous challenges and obstacles for today's Palestinians.

Rights & Democracy will now examine practical ways to establish projects for the promotion of human rights and democracy in various countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

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