News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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Why is Mubarak behind bars? The revolutionaries in Egypt who, through peaceful means, have, with the Armed Forces acquiescence, toppled him from power on February 11, have unanimously demanded it. It was not a desire for retribution; it was a desire to firm up the principle that in the new Egypt, nobody was above the law.
Muhammad Hosni Mubarak has ruled Egypt for 32 years. During that nearly one-third of a century of dictatorial rule, that President has thoroughly converted Egypt into a fully-fledged Security State.
What is a Security State? It is a State where the ruler denies his people the right to freedoms of speech, assembly and conscience (defined as the moral sense of right and wrong). How does such a dictator do that? Well, through a large body of enforcers (police, secret service and informants) whose number, under Mubarak, was greater than the number of the entire Egyptian armed forces.
The security state of Mr. Mubarak spread fear, showed favors for those who cooperated with it, watched what people did or did not do, and acted above the law by denying the Egyptian people the right to due process and equality before the law.
Mubarak's trial and in public has been a primary demand by his aggrieved people whom he took for granted for nearly 32 years of his unrelenting dictatorship. The trial's delays were a cause for Tahrir becoming again and again full of thousands of protesters.
His poor health proved to be no excuse for transferring him from his hospital in Sharm El-Sheikh by the Red Sea to a Cairo prison and a Cairo court. The pleadings of his lawyer about unfitness to stand trial were to no avail. Finally the newly-restructured Cabinet of Issam Sharaf, supported by the Supreme Military Council, declared that Mubarak, in early August, would be in the dock in Cairo to stand a televised trial, the first of its kinds for a former head of state in the Arab world.
Mubarak's example will surly send shock waves in the entire Middle East. It will scare every Arab dictator, president or monarch in the vast Arab world. The banners have already been raised in Yemen and Syria proclaiming one chilling warning, "Who Is Next?"
The Mubarak case has been joined to the cases of his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, and of his former Interior Minister, El-Adly and other symbols of the former Security State. The charges cover the main areas of abuse of authority, theft of public funds, give-aways of national resources, killing of demonstrators, fomenting sectarian violence, and other forms of repression.
Mubarak's journey from absolute power to absolute humiliation has been both dramatic and historic. Its lessons will not be forgotten anytime soon.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
A New Meaning For Fridays
News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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Religious tradition allocates one day per week for worship, reflection and rest. Friday for Muslims; Saturday for Jews; and Sunday for Christians. But with the Arab Spring and Summer, Friday in Egypt as well as in several other Arab countries has acquired a new meaning. Worship, yes; reflection, maybe; rest, has been now replaced by the word "revolution." And each Friday has not only a revolutionary connotation, but also a name indicative of the progression of the revolutionary mood, demands and aspiration.
To illustrate, at Tahrir Square, which has become the pulsing revolutionary heart of Egypt and which is being emulated in other Arab lands, Friday of July 15 was named: "Last Warning Friday," or "Final Ultimatum Friday." But ultimatum to whom and for what?
The fear for the future of the Egyptian Revolution is palpable. In op-ed articles in the Egyptian press, the most used phrase is "beware of the theft of the Revolution." Arabic language newspapers which are published outside Egypt frequently headlines "The Egyptian Revolution is in Danger." The continuous sit-ins and demonstrations in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt have paralyzed more than traffic in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez. They have paralyzed the swearing-in of a new Cabinet, headed again by Prime Minister Issam Sharaf, because of unending popular demand for a Cabinet whose members had nothing to do with the collapsed Mubarak regime.
Superficially, the scene appears chaotic. But a close examination, the phenomenon is confirming in the Egyptian public mind that sovereignty belongs to the people, and that the present role of the Supreme Military Council, headed by Defense Minister General Tantawi is transitional, leading to a parliamentary democracy, where a secular state is firm, though gradually, in place.
Through "Final Ultimatum Friday," the demonstrators demands produced a Cabinet of technocrats. Beyond that, 34 parties and political movements issued what they called "The Tahrir Manifesto." That document called for: ending the political polemics which have tended to fragment the broad revolutionary movement; speedy and public trials of the "symbols" of the Mubarak regime, including Mubarak, his wife and sons; muscular powers for the Sharaf Cabinet; trial of security personnel implicated in the death of nearly 900 demonstrators and in injuring thousands; return of public funds spirited outside of Egypt; abolishing trials of civilians before military tribunals; and the abrogation of laws prohibiting public demonstrations. Twenty-five persons suspected of attacking the Tahrir demonstrators in Feb. 2 and 3 in what is known as "the Camel Battle" are being tried by the Egyptian criminal justice system. They include the former Presidents of the two chambers of Parliament.
The Prime Minister, in the spirit of the new openness of the Egyptian political environment, one day before the swearing in of his new Cabinet before General Tantawi on July 21, used his Facebook page to complain of unnamed quarters which he said are working hard to impede the progress of Egypt towards stability and productivity. He stressed that: "The most important thing I care for now is for the public to develop public trust in the fact that every decision I took or shall take has only one objective: to benefit Egypt."
In consequence of that steady march toward stable governance, demonstrators in cities all over Egypt, including Zagazi, the provincial capital of Sharkia where I have originally hailed from, have marched peacefully. No police was on hand except for guarding critical installations. The public has been policing itself. "Selmia, Selmia" (Peaceful, Peaceful).
The ripple effects on the march of Egypt towards democracy have been in evidence: the laws governing the composition of the two parliamentary chambers and the practice of political rights have been promulgated; dates for the one-day elections of 504 members of the House of Representatives and of 390 members of the Senate will be announced in September; the minimum age for candidates has been reduced to 25 years, a nod for the youth who brought about the Tahrir dramatic changes; election dates will be spread over 30 days covering all of Egypt as divided in 3 huge electoral zones constituting 120 districts.
A new magazine from Cairo's Al-Ahram newspaper establishment has just made its debut. Its title is "Democracy"; its editor is a woman journalist, Dr. Hala Mustapha who wrote its lead editorial under the title of "The Elections and the Constitution." Among the articles of that maiden issue is one written by another woman journalist, Dr. Mona Abu-Sinnah, under the tantalizing title of "Democracy and the Terrorism of Demagoguery."
Within the framework of this emerging democracy, a new organization has been established in Cairo under the name of "The Arab/African Working Group for Democratic Action," whose Executive Director is a young articulate Judge, Aly Mokhtar. I could not turn down the invitation to becoming its President, though residing for the most time in the USA.
Here we again quote from the poem by Mohja Kahf entitled "My People are Rising." "I see their faces changing under fresh fresh tears, mine and theirs... some spigot in my chest just opened that has been stopped up for forty-eight years..."
Now, every Arab dictator wishes that he could expunge Fridays from the weekly calendar!!
***************************************
Religious tradition allocates one day per week for worship, reflection and rest. Friday for Muslims; Saturday for Jews; and Sunday for Christians. But with the Arab Spring and Summer, Friday in Egypt as well as in several other Arab countries has acquired a new meaning. Worship, yes; reflection, maybe; rest, has been now replaced by the word "revolution." And each Friday has not only a revolutionary connotation, but also a name indicative of the progression of the revolutionary mood, demands and aspiration.
To illustrate, at Tahrir Square, which has become the pulsing revolutionary heart of Egypt and which is being emulated in other Arab lands, Friday of July 15 was named: "Last Warning Friday," or "Final Ultimatum Friday." But ultimatum to whom and for what?
The fear for the future of the Egyptian Revolution is palpable. In op-ed articles in the Egyptian press, the most used phrase is "beware of the theft of the Revolution." Arabic language newspapers which are published outside Egypt frequently headlines "The Egyptian Revolution is in Danger." The continuous sit-ins and demonstrations in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt have paralyzed more than traffic in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez. They have paralyzed the swearing-in of a new Cabinet, headed again by Prime Minister Issam Sharaf, because of unending popular demand for a Cabinet whose members had nothing to do with the collapsed Mubarak regime.
Superficially, the scene appears chaotic. But a close examination, the phenomenon is confirming in the Egyptian public mind that sovereignty belongs to the people, and that the present role of the Supreme Military Council, headed by Defense Minister General Tantawi is transitional, leading to a parliamentary democracy, where a secular state is firm, though gradually, in place.
Through "Final Ultimatum Friday," the demonstrators demands produced a Cabinet of technocrats. Beyond that, 34 parties and political movements issued what they called "The Tahrir Manifesto." That document called for: ending the political polemics which have tended to fragment the broad revolutionary movement; speedy and public trials of the "symbols" of the Mubarak regime, including Mubarak, his wife and sons; muscular powers for the Sharaf Cabinet; trial of security personnel implicated in the death of nearly 900 demonstrators and in injuring thousands; return of public funds spirited outside of Egypt; abolishing trials of civilians before military tribunals; and the abrogation of laws prohibiting public demonstrations. Twenty-five persons suspected of attacking the Tahrir demonstrators in Feb. 2 and 3 in what is known as "the Camel Battle" are being tried by the Egyptian criminal justice system. They include the former Presidents of the two chambers of Parliament.
The Prime Minister, in the spirit of the new openness of the Egyptian political environment, one day before the swearing in of his new Cabinet before General Tantawi on July 21, used his Facebook page to complain of unnamed quarters which he said are working hard to impede the progress of Egypt towards stability and productivity. He stressed that: "The most important thing I care for now is for the public to develop public trust in the fact that every decision I took or shall take has only one objective: to benefit Egypt."
In consequence of that steady march toward stable governance, demonstrators in cities all over Egypt, including Zagazi, the provincial capital of Sharkia where I have originally hailed from, have marched peacefully. No police was on hand except for guarding critical installations. The public has been policing itself. "Selmia, Selmia" (Peaceful, Peaceful).
The ripple effects on the march of Egypt towards democracy have been in evidence: the laws governing the composition of the two parliamentary chambers and the practice of political rights have been promulgated; dates for the one-day elections of 504 members of the House of Representatives and of 390 members of the Senate will be announced in September; the minimum age for candidates has been reduced to 25 years, a nod for the youth who brought about the Tahrir dramatic changes; election dates will be spread over 30 days covering all of Egypt as divided in 3 huge electoral zones constituting 120 districts.
A new magazine from Cairo's Al-Ahram newspaper establishment has just made its debut. Its title is "Democracy"; its editor is a woman journalist, Dr. Hala Mustapha who wrote its lead editorial under the title of "The Elections and the Constitution." Among the articles of that maiden issue is one written by another woman journalist, Dr. Mona Abu-Sinnah, under the tantalizing title of "Democracy and the Terrorism of Demagoguery."
Within the framework of this emerging democracy, a new organization has been established in Cairo under the name of "The Arab/African Working Group for Democratic Action," whose Executive Director is a young articulate Judge, Aly Mokhtar. I could not turn down the invitation to becoming its President, though residing for the most time in the USA.
Here we again quote from the poem by Mohja Kahf entitled "My People are Rising." "I see their faces changing under fresh fresh tears, mine and theirs... some spigot in my chest just opened that has been stopped up for forty-eight years..."
Now, every Arab dictator wishes that he could expunge Fridays from the weekly calendar!!
Friday, July 15, 2011
The Egyptian Revolution: A Work In Progress?
News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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Tahrir is alive again. Its historic revolution has not yet run its course. The armed forces rule; the Government of Issam Sharaf manages as best as it can; the trials of Mubarak, his sons and his stalwarts have not yet begun; and those, young and old, who brought Mubarak down, feel that their basic demands remain unfulfilled. The Revolution is not yet a work of progress, but a work in progress.
Impatience is everywhere. The Deputy Prime Minister, Dr. Yehia El-Gamal, a friend of this blogger and a colleague at Cairo University School of Law has resigned; the populace now want Prime Minister Sharaf be replaced; nearly 700 of the top Egyptian police leadership are pushed into retirement, with 17 of them stigmatized by the killing of hundreds of protesters in January/February; and the Tahrir revolutionaries are not yet mollified.
Some voices reach me to bemoan what they call "the dictatorship of anarchy" and the young at Tahrir and at other similar places in Alexandria and Suez are described as the multitudes of "No." The doom sayers are worried that, as they put it to me on the phone from Cairo, "Egypt is on its way toward destruction." Very dire predictions which are not backed by the events on the ground.
For after 60 years of stifling dictatorships which began with Nasser in 1952, and ended with Mubarak in 2011 after recasting Egypt into a security State, Egypt has vaulted over the high fence of oppression into the green meadows of popular sovereignty. Some demands are basic, others are not so basic. But the public somehow knows that there is no going back to the prior age of darkness.
The Minister of Interior, Mr. Mansour Issa, has declared on July 13 that his Ministry will no longer intervene in political matters, but will focus on criminal justice and maintenance of public order. The Supreme Military Council, the interim collective presidency, announced that elections for the two houses of Parliament will take place in either October or November this year. The Coalition of revolutionary organizations has abandoned the call for sacking Prime Minister Sharaf to allow for continuity which will produce a new cabinet. It is expected that the Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (equivalent to the U.S. Federal Reserve), Farouk Al-Okda, shall be the new Finance Minister. Others, including prominent Copts, like George Ishaak, are slated to join the new Cabinet.
Stability begets prosperity. The Revolution returned to the Egyptians their dignity, but delayed their economic recovery. Tourism has been badly hit; unemployment remains high; public institutions remain in quasi paralysis. Yet public spiritedness is back in full. Threats to the freedom of navigation in the Suez Canal were short lived; calls for civil disobedience in Alexandria and Suez were abandoned; and the Cairo Stock Exchange witnessed an unexpected euphoria.
So what brought the pendulum of the Egyptian Revolution to its natural center, after the dire proclamations that the mother of all Arab revolutions was in danger of a slide back to anarchy? The Supreme Military Council and the Prime Minister held extensive dialogues with the Revolutionary Coalition; the Supreme Judicial Council declared that the trials of the symbols of the Mubarak regime will be aired on radio and TV in real time; the armed forces stressed that they and the people are together bound in unity; new police forces were back in the streets; generous monthly pensions, reaching up to $500 per family of victims of the Revolution began flowing; and popular committees were formed to protect public institutions from counter-revolutionary attacks. The work in progress is turning into a work of progress.
A Constitutional Republic on the Nile is rising.
***************************************
Tahrir is alive again. Its historic revolution has not yet run its course. The armed forces rule; the Government of Issam Sharaf manages as best as it can; the trials of Mubarak, his sons and his stalwarts have not yet begun; and those, young and old, who brought Mubarak down, feel that their basic demands remain unfulfilled. The Revolution is not yet a work of progress, but a work in progress.
Impatience is everywhere. The Deputy Prime Minister, Dr. Yehia El-Gamal, a friend of this blogger and a colleague at Cairo University School of Law has resigned; the populace now want Prime Minister Sharaf be replaced; nearly 700 of the top Egyptian police leadership are pushed into retirement, with 17 of them stigmatized by the killing of hundreds of protesters in January/February; and the Tahrir revolutionaries are not yet mollified.
Some voices reach me to bemoan what they call "the dictatorship of anarchy" and the young at Tahrir and at other similar places in Alexandria and Suez are described as the multitudes of "No." The doom sayers are worried that, as they put it to me on the phone from Cairo, "Egypt is on its way toward destruction." Very dire predictions which are not backed by the events on the ground.
For after 60 years of stifling dictatorships which began with Nasser in 1952, and ended with Mubarak in 2011 after recasting Egypt into a security State, Egypt has vaulted over the high fence of oppression into the green meadows of popular sovereignty. Some demands are basic, others are not so basic. But the public somehow knows that there is no going back to the prior age of darkness.
The Minister of Interior, Mr. Mansour Issa, has declared on July 13 that his Ministry will no longer intervene in political matters, but will focus on criminal justice and maintenance of public order. The Supreme Military Council, the interim collective presidency, announced that elections for the two houses of Parliament will take place in either October or November this year. The Coalition of revolutionary organizations has abandoned the call for sacking Prime Minister Sharaf to allow for continuity which will produce a new cabinet. It is expected that the Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (equivalent to the U.S. Federal Reserve), Farouk Al-Okda, shall be the new Finance Minister. Others, including prominent Copts, like George Ishaak, are slated to join the new Cabinet.
Stability begets prosperity. The Revolution returned to the Egyptians their dignity, but delayed their economic recovery. Tourism has been badly hit; unemployment remains high; public institutions remain in quasi paralysis. Yet public spiritedness is back in full. Threats to the freedom of navigation in the Suez Canal were short lived; calls for civil disobedience in Alexandria and Suez were abandoned; and the Cairo Stock Exchange witnessed an unexpected euphoria.
So what brought the pendulum of the Egyptian Revolution to its natural center, after the dire proclamations that the mother of all Arab revolutions was in danger of a slide back to anarchy? The Supreme Military Council and the Prime Minister held extensive dialogues with the Revolutionary Coalition; the Supreme Judicial Council declared that the trials of the symbols of the Mubarak regime will be aired on radio and TV in real time; the armed forces stressed that they and the people are together bound in unity; new police forces were back in the streets; generous monthly pensions, reaching up to $500 per family of victims of the Revolution began flowing; and popular committees were formed to protect public institutions from counter-revolutionary attacks. The work in progress is turning into a work of progress.
A Constitutional Republic on the Nile is rising.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Between Faith and Fiction
News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
***************************************
The general wisdom, when teaching law, is that law tends to codify trends and custom of societies which have proceeded such codification by, say, 10 years or more. The lesson therefore is that law follows what people have practiced prior to its enactment.
But in the Egypt which is emerging from the debris of 60 years of military dictatorship of Nasser/Sadat/Mubarak, is applying the above adage in reverse. The traditional maxim of custom precedes the law has now been re-invented in Egypt to say the law precedes society's reconstruction. The three generations of military/security/dictatorship, swept aside by the January 25, 2011 Revolution, the first to be engineered by everyone and no one at Tahrir Square, confronted the new Egypt with a vacuum - a void.
The void was a gaping hole confronting 90 million Egyptians: No independent political parties; no visible leadership symbols after the so-called Democratic National Party, Mubarak's political instrument, was destroyed; no legitimate Parliament; no free media; no social or economic fairness; no independent judiciary. The only structure which was left standing after the January 25 hurricane was that of the Muslim Brotherhood, banned form political or civic participation by Nasser since 1954. And the Brotherhood, also known as "the Banned" (Al-Mahzourah) represented various shades of Islamic faith, a spectrum which included both extremism and liberalism without modernity. And the new Egypt was bent on secularism in the aftermath of a Revolution during the first phases of which the Brothers played no part.
The ethos of the new Egypt is: "faith is for God; homeland is for all." It is an ethos that separates faith from the fiction propagated by the likes of Bin Laden that Islam is the propeller of a forever war against non-Muslims. That was the criminal fiction behind 9/11 and behind the on-going confrontation between Al-Qaeda and global co-existence within diversity which is a pivot of the Muslims' faith.
That historic separation between faith and fiction brought about an interim administration of the military and technocrats to fill the void facing post-Mubarak Egypt. The interim period is expected to end toward the end of 2011 with a new constitution and legal order in place - law is galloping ahead of Egyptian society to save the Revolution from the vagaries of a slide-back into the unknown.
How does that separation between faith and mischievous fiction operates in the environment of the new Egypt where Friday of July 8 declared: "The Revolution Above All," (Al-Thawrah Awwallan)?
***************************************
The general wisdom, when teaching law, is that law tends to codify trends and custom of societies which have proceeded such codification by, say, 10 years or more. The lesson therefore is that law follows what people have practiced prior to its enactment.
But in the Egypt which is emerging from the debris of 60 years of military dictatorship of Nasser/Sadat/Mubarak, is applying the above adage in reverse. The traditional maxim of custom precedes the law has now been re-invented in Egypt to say the law precedes society's reconstruction. The three generations of military/security/dictatorship, swept aside by the January 25, 2011 Revolution, the first to be engineered by everyone and no one at Tahrir Square, confronted the new Egypt with a vacuum - a void.
The void was a gaping hole confronting 90 million Egyptians: No independent political parties; no visible leadership symbols after the so-called Democratic National Party, Mubarak's political instrument, was destroyed; no legitimate Parliament; no free media; no social or economic fairness; no independent judiciary. The only structure which was left standing after the January 25 hurricane was that of the Muslim Brotherhood, banned form political or civic participation by Nasser since 1954. And the Brotherhood, also known as "the Banned" (Al-Mahzourah) represented various shades of Islamic faith, a spectrum which included both extremism and liberalism without modernity. And the new Egypt was bent on secularism in the aftermath of a Revolution during the first phases of which the Brothers played no part.
The ethos of the new Egypt is: "faith is for God; homeland is for all." It is an ethos that separates faith from the fiction propagated by the likes of Bin Laden that Islam is the propeller of a forever war against non-Muslims. That was the criminal fiction behind 9/11 and behind the on-going confrontation between Al-Qaeda and global co-existence within diversity which is a pivot of the Muslims' faith.
That historic separation between faith and fiction brought about an interim administration of the military and technocrats to fill the void facing post-Mubarak Egypt. The interim period is expected to end toward the end of 2011 with a new constitution and legal order in place - law is galloping ahead of Egyptian society to save the Revolution from the vagaries of a slide-back into the unknown.
How does that separation between faith and mischievous fiction operates in the environment of the new Egypt where Friday of July 8 declared: "The Revolution Above All," (Al-Thawrah Awwallan)?
- Retreat by the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi newly-minted parties from the slogan of "The Constitution First" to espouse at Tahrir the basic demands of the January 25 Revolution for elections, both Parliamentary (Sept.) and presidential (Nov.) followed by a constituent constitutional assembly followed by a plebiscite for constitutional ratification. Waiting for that last step would have prolonged the void;
- More than 26 political parties, guided in part by the spirit and content of the Glorious (Al-Azhar) Document (see this blog of June 26) calling for a separation between the State and religion, reached a historic consensus on what they call "the Guide for a Democratic Coalition."
- The cooperation of both the Muslim Brotherhood, now split between a political party and a faith sector, and the Salafis with no less than 3 political parities, was a primary objective of the youth who, through social media, collapsed the Mubarak regime and are now bent upon prosecuting its symbols.
- The Freedom and Justice Party, made up of a sector of the Muslim Brotherhood, has raised the secular flag as a banner around which the new Egypt is coalescing.
- The Friday of July 8, called "Revolution Above All" Friday in which all political parties participated had, beside the goal of unity of all political shades, a message for the Supreme Military Council: "Speed up the trials of Mubarak and his family and his henchmen." It is a thunderous call for equality before the law, even as the new laws are being drafted.
- Separation between "faith and fiction" has also required the formulation of a new law on the construction of places of worship. Mubarak has used the sectarian conflict between Muslim and Copt resulting from an unspoken prohibition of new churches construction as a means of prolonging his security and dictatorship State. The new law was approved as a draft by the Sharaf Cabinet before submitting it to the new Parliament later this year. Its central features are "no security clearance before construction" and no fake mosques in apartment buildings and cellars, none on arable land, none with a Nile or Nile canals front, and none in antiquities areas.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Stoking the Fires of the Arab Spring
News from the Egyptian Street and Media Translated Without Comment from Arabic into English As a Public Service
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"The violation of the rule of law as motivation of the Arab uprisings"
Delivered at the meeting of the World Justice Forum, held in Barcelona, Spain in June 2011
by Ambassador Dr. El Sayed A. Shalaby
Executive Director, Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, Cairo, Egypt
Historical analysis of the political systems in the Arab region during the last decade will reveal a prevalence of the violations of law, human rights, abuses of power and consequent corruption. This paper will focus on manifestations of the violations of the rule of law, and their role in motivating the recent uprisings in the Arab region.
Disregard for the rule of law has been commonplace within the Arab world. The violations and corruption became structural in many Arab States, with numerous individuals consistently abusing their positions for personal gain, thereby depleting state resources.
Part of this injustice involved the consistent undermining of the authority and independence of the judicial system by the authoritarian regimes of the Arab world. One common aspect of this was the incomplete implementation of the law, with examples including violations of traffic laws, import-export laws, and building regulations, as well as prevalence of smuggling and black market operations. The judicial branch has been further weakened by the fact that court rulings are seldom enacted,. Additionally, the decaying rule of law and government authority was accentuated by several official bodies, such as through the insertion of loopholes into laws, thus providing impunity for violators. Furthermore, the governing elite have often built personal fiefdoms upon government institutions and assets, in order to increase the elites' private wealth and secure their hold on power.
Human rights violations have also been rife in Arab States, further driving the recent popular uprisings. Prevalent examples of this have included the unlawful detention and release of people from prison, the use of torture, and widespread 'disappearances'. Moreover, the security sector has often been authorized to violate human rights in the name of maintaining stability and law and order. In practice, this has usually involved crushing the government's opponents and silencing opposition parties. Indeed, laws relating to the freedom of speech in the Arab world have often restricted this freedom instead of protecting it. These human rights abuses are key issues which must be addressed by new governments in the Arab region.
The judicial system's independence has been threatened both by legal limitations on the judicial system's power and independence, and by the permeation of the more generally unlawful and corrupt conditions of the Arab States. The reduced independence of the judicial system rendered it unable to counterbalance the veritable fusion of the executive and legislative bodies in many Arab States. Additionally, in the Arab region the authority of the military justice systems has often been extended to civilian matters, thus reaching beyond their rightful jurisdiction. In addition to the violation of the rule of law, we can not also neglect major factors of the uprisings namely economic and social deprivations of a large sector of society in the form of better education, jobs and climbing of the social ladder.
It is obvious that the political corruption and the flagrant violations of the rule of law in the Arab region were among the main reasons that helped to motivate the Arab uprisings and revolutions. Those uprisings were successfull in some cases, such as Egypt and Tunisia, where the popular movement was strong enough to overthrow the regime's corruption symbols. However, other similar popular uprisings in the region are still at status quo, as is clearly seen in the Arab countries of Yemen, Libya, Syria and Bahrain. Since the blatant disrespect of the rule of law was one of the main factors behind the overthrow of the Arab regimes, it is expected that the new regimes will avoid any violations of the rule of law and build a strong democratic governing system that is based on respect of the law and human rights. This is the main challenge facing the post revolutionary Arab countries.
***************************************
"The violation of the rule of law as motivation of the Arab uprisings"
Delivered at the meeting of the World Justice Forum, held in Barcelona, Spain in June 2011
by Ambassador Dr. El Sayed A. Shalaby
Executive Director, Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, Cairo, Egypt
Historical analysis of the political systems in the Arab region during the last decade will reveal a prevalence of the violations of law, human rights, abuses of power and consequent corruption. This paper will focus on manifestations of the violations of the rule of law, and their role in motivating the recent uprisings in the Arab region.
Disregard for the rule of law has been commonplace within the Arab world. The violations and corruption became structural in many Arab States, with numerous individuals consistently abusing their positions for personal gain, thereby depleting state resources.
Part of this injustice involved the consistent undermining of the authority and independence of the judicial system by the authoritarian regimes of the Arab world. One common aspect of this was the incomplete implementation of the law, with examples including violations of traffic laws, import-export laws, and building regulations, as well as prevalence of smuggling and black market operations. The judicial branch has been further weakened by the fact that court rulings are seldom enacted,. Additionally, the decaying rule of law and government authority was accentuated by several official bodies, such as through the insertion of loopholes into laws, thus providing impunity for violators. Furthermore, the governing elite have often built personal fiefdoms upon government institutions and assets, in order to increase the elites' private wealth and secure their hold on power.
Human rights violations have also been rife in Arab States, further driving the recent popular uprisings. Prevalent examples of this have included the unlawful detention and release of people from prison, the use of torture, and widespread 'disappearances'. Moreover, the security sector has often been authorized to violate human rights in the name of maintaining stability and law and order. In practice, this has usually involved crushing the government's opponents and silencing opposition parties. Indeed, laws relating to the freedom of speech in the Arab world have often restricted this freedom instead of protecting it. These human rights abuses are key issues which must be addressed by new governments in the Arab region.
The judicial system's independence has been threatened both by legal limitations on the judicial system's power and independence, and by the permeation of the more generally unlawful and corrupt conditions of the Arab States. The reduced independence of the judicial system rendered it unable to counterbalance the veritable fusion of the executive and legislative bodies in many Arab States. Additionally, in the Arab region the authority of the military justice systems has often been extended to civilian matters, thus reaching beyond their rightful jurisdiction. In addition to the violation of the rule of law, we can not also neglect major factors of the uprisings namely economic and social deprivations of a large sector of society in the form of better education, jobs and climbing of the social ladder.
It is obvious that the political corruption and the flagrant violations of the rule of law in the Arab region were among the main reasons that helped to motivate the Arab uprisings and revolutions. Those uprisings were successfull in some cases, such as Egypt and Tunisia, where the popular movement was strong enough to overthrow the regime's corruption symbols. However, other similar popular uprisings in the region are still at status quo, as is clearly seen in the Arab countries of Yemen, Libya, Syria and Bahrain. Since the blatant disrespect of the rule of law was one of the main factors behind the overthrow of the Arab regimes, it is expected that the new regimes will avoid any violations of the rule of law and build a strong democratic governing system that is based on respect of the law and human rights. This is the main challenge facing the post revolutionary Arab countries.
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