Egypt: Human Rights Review

The Daily News Egypt reports that human rights organizations have submitted a bleak report of the state of human rights to the U.N. Human Rights Council ahead of a periodic review mechanism used to evaluate member states.  The report listed four major sources of rights violations: “an absence of political will to address these violations; a culture of impunity for offenders which contributes to the reoccurrence of violations; widespread interference by security bodies in all areas of public life and finally increasing poverty made worse by policies which have not only failed to address deteriorating economic conditions but has also aggravated poverty.”

The report, created by 16 NGOs, is highly critical of the Mubarak government in virtually all areas.  Ahmed Seif,  director of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, warned that 2010 and 2011 will be “extremely difficult” as the government will encounter “unprecedented resistance to it” from society.  As evidence of this social tension, Al Masry Al Youm reports that farmers in Daqahlia are protesting the government decision not to buy their corn after the government required them to grow corn instead of wheat.

Amr Hamzawy writes in The National that Egyptian opposition forces, led by Ayman Nour, are fixated on the possibility of Gamal Mubarak’s possible ascendancy and as such the opposition is unable to effectively prioritize issues essential to its political future.  He argues that the opposition shares responsibility with the regime for the opposition’s limited effectiveness and that leaders need to first “clarify their stance on the question of domestic and international monitoring of elections [...] Second, they have to prioritise calls for the abolition of the emergency law in effect in Egypt since 1981. Finally, parties should be more attuned to new political opportunities, expanding grassroots activities to capitalise on growing protest sentiment among wide segments of the population who are suffering from deteriorating social and economic conditions.” Micahel Allen also agrees with Hamzawy that the opposition cannot expect international support to change the electoral system as the Obama administration has reduced funding to civil society groups and de-prioritized democracy promotion.

Lastly, The NY Times writes about efforts to create an American market for Egyptian zabaleen Christian community products that are fashioned in a garbage-filled slum of Cairo.