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Human Rights in the Arab World
Arab and Islamic countries are increasingly pressured to democratic reforms; meaning to conduct free and fair elections, promote the role of the municipalities, increase the women's participation in the political and civil life, insure the media freedom and the civil society freedom and to resist corruption. Arab countries are also required to build knowledge society through reforming their education systems, raising the awareness of the ICT, achieving economic development, reducing the state's control over the economic affairs and joining the World Trade Organization.
These pressures are practiced once by the US, when adopting the Grand Middle East Project, which will be presented to the G8 Second Summit on July in Virginia, and once by the states of the European Union, which presented several initiatives concerning the reform in the Middle East countries, which will be examined in the NATO Istanbul Summit. The European approaches are not so much different from the American project, an assumption deduced from the EU statements to Lebanon on the necessity of developing democracy, respecting human rights and basic liberties and conducting the municipality and the presidential elections in preparation for the agreement of Euro-Lebanese partnership.
The first step that should be taken by a society pursuing justice and progress is to be governed by the rule of law which should be an expression of the public free will. In the most of the Arab states, people's representatives in the parliaments or in the municipalities are not elected freely and fairly by the people themselves, rather they are appointed by the authority, or obtained the votes by forgery, consequently, the Parliaments or municipals do not represent people, so that, the laws passed by them are invalid laws that do not express the citizens' will.
On the other side, assuming the legitimacy of the representation of people in parliaments, the members are still unable to face the authorities, due to either their awareness of their invalidity for they knew that they were not elected fairly, or due to the totalitarianism of the Arab regimes and the non existence of any protection for the human rights from the violations committed by the regime.
In the past, human rights were protected by the tribe or the ethnic group, they started to be organized and regulated with the civilized developments.
The first body to defend human rights might be the group of Qoraish's elite called Al-Fodoul Party, they obligated themselves not to allow any injustice in Mecca without being corrected. This party might be considered as the first human rights organization in the world. The Prophet Mohammad said "if I had been called to this party in the Islam I would have participated", which shows the human rights significance in Islam. Then it was Britain's Magna Carta, then the French Revolution with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Human rights were developed recently with the main document of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After that many human rights organizations were founded such as, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Arab Organization for Human Rights and many other organizations.
In spite of all the efforts done to protect human rights, the news from all over the world evokes sadness and disappointment, particularly those cover the Arab countries: the occupation of Palestine and Iraq, the numerous violations committed under it, the events of Yemen and Saudi Arabia, the American Zionist siege imposed on Libya and the events in Morocco, all these actions are committed with the full knowledge of the Arab governments, and they still call each other to start reform. In any meeting for the Arab League, the governments talk about the liberties given to their people. Governments are the main cause of the American and Zionist occupation of the Arab countries, and people are the ones who pay the price and suffer from these actions.
Under these circumstances, we have to ask our selves as Arabs, what is our destiny under the rule of such governments? What is after the occupation of Iraq? What would be after the American intervention in Syria? What would be after the American intervention in Sudan? What is after the economic ban place on Libya? What is after the Kuwaiti joyful reaction of the occupation of Iraq, What is expected from doing nothing in regard to the gross violations committed against the Palestinians? What is expected after the American intervention reached even to choose our leaders? What is expected after charging anybody calls for freedom with being terrorist, as happened with Hezb Allah and the Palestinian resistance? What is expected after the ban of Hijab in Tunis?
After all these, can we expect refrom? There seems to be a misunderstanding of the relation between the Arabs' bad need for socioeconomic and political reform and the American Project for the Grand Middle East that implies "special democracy". That this misunderstanding is meant to affect negatively on the serious real efforts to meet the public need of the political, social and economic reform, in order to keep Arab people living under the exceptional laws and in the emergency state, governed by the unconstitutional regimes and represented by the invalid parliaments.
Some Arab countries dared to disobey America's orders related to democracy and reform, but that does not mean that these countries and other countries do not need changes. The countries assert that they will make the reform that is needed by people, and in accordance with each nation's interest, not in compliance with the American orders or the Funds' conditions.
Noman Abdel Ghany
PA of Economic Sciences at the faculty of Economic Sciences in Enaba University- Algeria
Part time Professor at the faculty of Economic sciences in Qalma University
Part time Professor at the Continual Integration University- Qalma University
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