Rights not righted
By
Baheieddin Hassan
A few days ago, the cabinet referred a draft law to the People's Assembly, proposing the creation of a national council on human rights. If established this council must be independent enough to oversee the performance of state institutions with regard to human rights. It should investigate complaints from individuals and civil society organisations, prepare reports on its findings, and generally raise awareness of the human rights situation.
If we assume, for the sake of argument, that the Egyptian Council on Human Rights will be independent, powerful, and fair-minded, it is still likely to receive a lukewarm welcome from the public, for several reasons.
The move is belated: other Arab countries created human rights councils a decade ago, including Palestine which is not even a state. Secondly, the human rights situation in Egypt is so sad that no human rights council can set it right in the absence of the state initiating wide- ranging and radical reforms. Given that the media has portrayed the council as a substitute for reform, if not a rebuke to reformers, this hardly seems a possibility.
A drop of water is supposedly a good thing, though less so on land that has suffered years of draught. The government and the ruling party ignored human rights groups in every step along the way to drafting the law. Even worse, the government only showed interest in such legislation after the state of emergency had been renewed for three more years.
This week's Soapbox speaker is director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies.
