First, I would like to assert that by writing these words, i do not mean to criticize human rights institutions, it is rather a modest contribution in searching for a future prospect to create an actual human rights movement in Egypt, a way from individualism and the personal interests that hamper any effort to improve or develop.
Some would say that criticism should be internal, and not widely publicized, but we want to get out of this tight circle, approaching the most wide sector of beneficiaries. As our involvement in the field of human rights proved that Egyptians, or a wide sector of them, are indeed concerned with developing human rights movement in Egypt.

      Many Egyptians deal objectively with human rights, without the distortion of the incredibility and the uncertainty of the nobility of human rights values. But others always charge human rights movement with being western. unlike that speech, we emphasize on the importance of the role played by this movement in protecting and prompting the citizens' human rights and dignities. The Arab Organization for Human Rights (AOHR), established 20 years ago, was the first actual human rights organization in Egypt, brought forth the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), followed by many other human rights organizations, as a result of the crisis witnessed by the EOHR in 1994. in spite of the passage of time, the future of the human rights movement is still facing many challenges.

     In the last decade, from 1994 through 2004, there have been many human rights organizations, working in the different branches of the field of human rights, all of these organizations, generally, confront human rights violations. Most of them defend the civil political rights, and few of them, in comparison to the latter, work in defending the economic, social and cultural rights. The gap between the numbers of organizations working in the two branches is due to many reasons, which will not be mentioned in this article.
Adding, other organizations working in other fields related to human rights, such as, raising awareness, disseminating human rights culture and conducting and publishing studies and researches.

     There had been a convenient opportunity to create a deeper and wider dialogue among these organizations, due to their diversity. Definitely, that would have provided the movement with thrust, wider range of acting, and a stronger power to affect the Egyptian public opinion, or the beneficiaries with whom these institutions are dealing.

     Creating a dialogue among human rights institutions, is also motivated by the many challenges exist in human rights reality, starting with the anti- human rights speech of the press and the different means of media, the legislative restrictions that impede their activities, and ending with the violations often perpetrated, against human rights activists. All these aspects might threat the existence of these institutions and their continuance.

     These objective circumstances could have constituted an appropriate ground for starting a wide dialogue among human rights institutions in Egypt, based on their common goals. Unfortunately, this dialogue is still absent. The examples of its absence are many, the recent example is the issue of establishing a national council for human rights, some institutions accepted the idea and also accepted to get into interact with it, others institutions refused it altogether. That does not negate completely that there have been a form of coordination among these institutions in some issues, even if this coordination, does not reach the stage of an on going, extended dialogue among them.

      The question raised in this context is, on the shade of the challenges theses institutions are facing, why the dialogue among them is still absent?
We believe that the dialogue would remain absent as long as the regulating criteria of its basics and assumptions are absent as well. These regulating criteria are so many and various, that makes it hard to mention them all. But we will tackle the most important of them.

     The first criteria is the nonexistence of the institutional structure of these organizations. Thus, using the word "institution" in this context is figurative and does not implicate the real meaning, because the word "institution" means the existence of an institutional structure based on identified obvious features. The institutional structure should be based on the free independent will of the individuals involved in this structure, and also on those individuals' belief in the values of tolerance, accepting the other and disputes peaceful settlement..etc. these values form the wide space in which any institution could be found or established. Practically speaking, these values are utterly disappeared inside the human rights institutions in Egypt. For example, there is no peaceful circulation of authority inside these institutions. No chairman of any institution had abdicate the authority "voluntarily" for some one else from the same institution. All the institution are calling for the principal of participation in managing the institution affairs, either in their approach to the public opinion or to their beneficiaries, but they do not apply it indoors. This not only deprives them of their credibility, but also create an upturned impact in building an institution that may start on the basis of limited participation and end with complete loss of the basis of this participation.

      Some may argue that the participation principal can not be applied due to the imposed legal restriction or due to the abusiveness of the authorities. That could be reputed by the fact that there are several successive experiences in this field.

     It is unquestionable that having an institutional structure, built on identified jurisdictions and responsibilities, through which information can be circulated, imported and disseminated freely, is the greatest puffer could be found to face the perilous danger of "individuality" and the existence of the controlling individual who knows every tiny thing and controls every thing in the institution. The existence of such individual spreads out the spirit of individuality and eliminates any chance for doing a team work or collective management of the institutions affairs and taking decisions. This condition makes the president of the institution "or the chairman" the "Truth's shade" in the institution, as the king was "God's shade on Earth during the middle ages in Europe, before the age of enlightenment and renaissance. This is the widespread case in Arab societies, giving us a the great heritage of depression and retardation for long centuries.

     The individual authority brings about all the diseases of the ill- management. These diseases are reflected on the development of performance, the absence of the democratic system in managing and consequently, the subjective opinion overwhelms the objective one. When tackling any problem relates to human rights reality, all the personal problems and disputes show up and affect the nature of any dialogue or relation could be found among the institutions.

     The individual management also deprives the institution of any possibility of innovation or creativity. As the team work spirit is lost and the spirit of routine work prevails. Likewise, individuality increases the rate of replacing the institution staff members, it reached 1000% in some human rights institution. Hence, any talk about capacity building and improving skills would be useless. Consequently, there are no new generations to contribute in inventing new tools in facing the increasing human rights violations and to diverse the perspectives and ideas. Ironically enough, the staff members in human rights institutions have no social insurances, nor work contracts, even short-term contracts are not signed. Which put them in a very critical situation when talking about the violations of the economic rights faced by the workers in the different economic sectors in Egypt.      The lack of institutional structure, is connected with the lack of transparency inside human rights institutions, regarding their financial affairs generally and managing the simple administrative matters. This is not just with the staff members of the institution itself, it goes further to the beneficiaries who remain objects and do not have the chance to act or to participate either positively or negatively. It also goes further to reach the public opinion, in its heart, the persons concerned with human rights movement. As a consequence, talking about holding up the spirit of volunteering for those who might wish or desire to participate in improving and developing the human rights movement in Egypt would be also of no value. Therefore the proposals written and issued by some institutions on how to build a network of volunteers, are doubtful.

     Another aspect is being absent due to the lack of institutional structure, which is the aspect of holding accountable, either between the staff members and their bosses from one side, or between the institution itself and its beneficiaries from the other side. Thus, evaluating the institution's activities and to what extent it achieves its mission becomes so difficult and.

      Unfortunately, many human rights institutions do not have general assemblies to hold the manager or the chairman accountable, or to discuss any deficiency in the institution performance in achieving its mission. Some would claim that it is the legislative restrictions are the cause of such a defect, as they do not allow enough space to activate the role played by the general assemblies of the institutions, but this would be right words meant to mislead. What could prevent any institution, center, civil company or a firm from forming a general assembly, which could be chosen by the free independent will of the founders of the institution themselves? And give this general assembly the right to elect the board of directories, the right to hold the board responsible and accountable and the right to review and evaluate the board when it goes far from the goals mentioned in the institution's mission statement. There should be an actual executive mechanism insures practicing these rights. It should not be just words written on some papers to satisfy consciences and just for discharge persons.

     Every institution should publish an annual report about its different activities, that should be seen by the members, the interested persons and the beneficiaries. There should be elected board of directories, and play their role correctly. The executive manager should comply to the authority of board of directories, instead of the pro-forma board of trustees that have no real role in many human rights centers, and even do not meet. It would not be an exaggeration if we say that some trustees do not know where the organization is located. The form of the board of trustees is just a pro forma procedure meant to give an institutional feature.

     Precisely, since there is no dialogue among the members of one institution, how the call for a dialogue among human rights institutions would have a response. The first step should be done to create a dialogue, is to seek, before doing anything, a flexible institutional structure, with the right tools and channels for building an on going dialogue inside the institution itself, as an indispensable condition to create a continuous connected dialogue among the institutions.

     Finally, we would like to draw that attention to the fact that some human rights institutions have already taken the first steps towards building an institutional structure.


Abdel Mawla Ismaiel
Human rights activist& researcher
Tel: 002025422353
Mob: 0020105760794
E-mail: abdelmawlaa@yahoo.com