31 Jan. - 6 Feb. 2002
Issue No.571
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 31 Jan. - 6 Feb. 2002 Issue No.571 |
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The need for a clear and consensual definition of terrorism was the crux of discussions at an international conference held in Cairo this week. Sherine Bahaa sounded out the views
Representatives from international human rights organisations, international law experts and political science professors from both East and West met in Cairo this week to talk of the detrimental effects terrorism has on human rights and civil freedom.
The three-day conference that began Saturday was organised by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) in collaboration with the International Federation for Human Rights and the European Mediterranean Human Rights Network.
The conference's main objective, according to Bahieddin Hassan, head of the CIHRS, was to establish a universal approach for combating terrorism and protecting human rights.
The meeting ended, however, with no clear consensus reached.
"The hysterical mood that has prevailed since 11 September has switched the war against terrorism to a war against human rights, the articles of international law were set aside and the basics of international humanitarian law were totally disregarded," Hassan said, inaugurating the conference.
The attacks on the US were seen to have been exploited to breach human rights principles. Joe Stork, head of the Middle East and South Africa Human Rights Watch, believes that the Middle East is one of the regions where governments have sought to use the crisis to impose more severe restrictions on political opposition to justify the long authoritarian character of their rule.
"The ends do not justify, ever, means that involve serious and systematic violations of human rights or grave breaches of international humanitarian law," Stork said.
The discussions touched on issues such as clash of civilisations, the difference between terrorism and national liberation movements, international law and the necessity to reinvigorate it, Islamophobia and Westernophobia and the moral responsibility of human rights groups. Everybody seemed to use the events of 11 September as the reference point for their analyses.
Dyab Abou Jahjah, head of the European Arab League, a human rights NGO based in Belgium, said the attacks are an extension of a long series of anti-Arab discrimination policies that already existed in the Western world. "Europe did not need 11 September to become Islamophobic or anti-Arab," he said.
Abou Jahjah, who was giving his personal testimony as an Arab who lived his life in a Western country, said that Arabs have always been regarded "as fifth column and screened and infiltrated by all kinds of security agencies."
The Europeans seem to have learnt the lesson of 11 September well. "Trying to oppress Arabs and Muslims will mean a street war that nobody wants," Abou Jahjah said.
Mohamed Sayed Said, deputy director of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies who is soon to begin his new posting as Al-Ahram's bureau chief in Washington, thinks the attacks on the US brought about drastic changes in the strategic and political dimensions of international relations.
"It opened the chapter of the clash of religions and cultures," said Said.
He said although both Arab and US leaders have attempted to suppress the belief that the terrorist attack on the US was a prelude to a religious war, the view still runs strong.
Said said he still recalls the massive number of letters he received after 11 September criticising his condemnation of the attacks. "The feeling of happiness was expressed by a large sector of the Arab and Muslim public. They viewed the attacks as divine justice for the US's blind bias in favour of Israel."
In the fifties, participants marvelled, the Arab region was used by the US as a tool to curtail communism. Islam was seen as an indispensable ally in the confrontation with the Soviet Union and the US partnered with states such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Afghan mujahedeen were called freedom fighters by the United States at the same time that the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was called a terrorist group.
All participants agreed that Israel benefited the most from the attacks on the US and that it has since escalated its oppressive measures against the Palestinians and treated their resistance as a form of violence that must be thwarted.
"Today, Israel has become a state combating terrorism and the Palestinians are being equated with Bin Laden," said Azmi Bishara, member of the Israeli Knesset and professor of philosophy at Beir Zeit University.
Bishara described the inhuman Israeli practices against the Palestinians as "state terrorism," which, he said, should be faced by national liberation movements. He lamented the fact that international human rights groups have distanced themselves from these movements. "There is a growing tendency to label many things as terrorism and to use this as a pretext to launch war. Here comes the role of human rights groups," he said.
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