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Cairo, 9/3/2003
The initiations of the Ruling Party Signs of current crisis Since the middle of the eighteenth century, all the philosophers and the theorists have agreed on the concept of civil society to be "any organized work not done by governmental institutions, established independently on social values based on justice and respecting freedoms and rights. On condition that, the most important function of the civil society is to be a puffer against the state's probable injustice anywhere and anytime" Today, while the Egyptian government has been doing great efforts constricting the efficiency of the civil society in the last period, once by extending the emergency law till 2006, and another by issuing the civil associations law. Human rights defendants were astonished and wondering about the news published in the governmental newspaper Al-Ahram. The news by no means arouse doubts about what the state, the authorities and the Ruling Party want to do!!! In the 7th of March, Al-Ahram newspaper published a main headline says: "Three initiatives of the National Democratic Party: to cancel the hard labor penalty, to cancel the State Security Courts Law and to establish the National Council of Human Rights"!!! The truth is that the first two initiatives are by no means constructive and important for the sake of all Egyptians, in spite of they being running in contrary with what the Ruling Party had made recently by extending the Emergency Law. The meaning of the first two initiatives could have been reached if the Emergency law had been cancelled from the beginning. But we have to welcome them as positive achievements of the Ruling party, the NDP used to create every thing that can be obstacle to the political activity and the freedoms of citizens. It also used to issue every law and legislation that can increase the suffering of people such as, the united labor law, the discharge of agricultural lands law, the Emergency Law and the Association Law, etc. As for the third initiative, the establishment of a National Council for Human Rights, the Association for Human Rights Legal Aid would like to remind of its reply on the 19th of April 2000 to the Attorney General at that time (Mr. Farouk Sif El-Nasr). He had made a decision to form a committee to review the draft law of establishing the National Council for Human Rights. AHRLA issued a press release expressing its opinion in the decision, which is, the establishment of such a council would be a completion for the imitated triangle of the Tunisian experiment of Human Rights. As the state first begin with issuing restraining laws for the civil work, then it goes after the activists, then it establishes the National Council for Human Rights. Today, AHRLA repeats what it had expressed in 2000 concerning the state's intentions to establish such a council for Human Rights, relying on the Ruling Party initiative, while the other states authorities are violating Human Rights!!!. Especially, if such a council comes only to enhance the image of the Egyptian Government before the international gatherings and organizations and the public. Through the last two decades, Egyptian Government could not reply to the reports of the international human rights organizations on human rights violations in Egypt such as practicing torture, detention, issuing restraining laws …etc Today AHRLA asks an axiomatic question: why do the state play the role of the Civil Society? Short enough, the state has issued a law that necessitates the separation between the political parties work and the non- governmental organizations work. Then comes the Ruling Party today, which is beyond saying, one of the main authorities of the state to establish the National Council for Human Rights!!! The association for human rights legal aid calls for holding a meeting for the Egyptian human rights organizations. In which they can adopt united situation in facing the establishment of such a governmental council, and discuss the alternative suggestion of establishing an independent council for non -governmental organizations working in the field of Human Rights. The association also does not forget to emphasize on the necessity of acquiring progress in the real political reformations without being connected either with Mr. Collen Paul's initiatives or with the Ruling Party's ones!!! The association also calls for activating the civil work and not to nationalizing it. We hope that the government would fulfill its responsibilities of protecting citizens form the corruption spread out in the different sectors of the country, particularly, the current economic crisis which had reached its utmost during the last two decades. The state has to play only the role of the state, has to let the civil society to play its own, which is protecting the citizens' freedoms, defending the citizens' economic, social and cultural rights, and their political and civil rights. initiatives. No to the state nationalizing the civil society. |