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| International-UN-NGOs |
| 34 Arab Non-Government Organziations Criticize Arab League |
| 2004-06-03 |
| From MEMRI, with regard to the Arab League’s meeting held on May 22-23. The undersigned organizations express regret over the miniscule results of the Arab summit in the issues [concerning] the Arab world – first among them political reform. .... The Arab govern-ments are insisting on procrastination and time-wasting, by connecting the realization of reform with the resolution of the Palestinian problem and the ending of the occupation in Iraq – as if the liberation of Palestine and Iraq demanded the continuation of corruption, torture, and autocratic rule, and the abolition of democracy, rule of law, and human rights in the Arab world. .... In its present form, the charter does not guarantee an effective mechanism for supervising and protecting human rights in the Arab countries, and does not ensure the right to political participation through objective, free elections, or the right to form political parties and professional and labor unions. [The charter] limits the right to strike, endorses curtailment of women’s rights, and ignores the existence and roles of human rights organizations. Complaints that the meeting ignored recent suppression of human rights organizations in Syria, Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia. The summit ignored the wide-ranging killings going on in the Darfour region of the Sudan, and the grave violations of human rights and international law being committed there – which have reached the level of ethnic cleansing – by militias supported by the Sudanese government. [This is being done] in disregard of what was written in the report issued by a fact-finding delegation sent by the Arab League that confirmed serious human rights violations in Darfour by the local Sudanese administration. The summit’s failure to address its obligation in this case can be additional justification for foreign intervention in Darfour. .... The Arab summit was a total failure even in its attempt to ease the pressure for reform by internal public opinion and by the international community. It was confirmed that the task of reform will not begin as long as the Arab peoples, the political parties, and the unions and the human rights organizations, and the rest of the institutions of civil society do not take this task upon themselves, and stop putting faith in rhetorical promises. |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |