By Amira Howeidy Whether they are seen as one of the myriad ramifications of "globalisation", as the product of a "universal trend", or merely as a tool of the North in its attempt to control the impoverished South, human rights groups and the concepts on which they base their work are at the centre of today's socio-political debate. In Egypt, not only does the number of human rights groups continue to increase exponentially, but they have also come to represent a lobby of considerable weight, contrary to many past predictions. In the 1995 parliamentary elections, it wasn't the opposition parties who scrutinised the electoral process, but the watchdog committees set up by four human rights groups. The concept of a non-governmental organisation (NGO) won official recognition in the country in 1994, when Egypt hosted the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). This was bolstered further in 1996, when Mrs Suzanne Mubarak headed a large delegation of governmental and non-governmental bodies to represent Egypt at the 3rd World Woman's Conference in Beijing, China. Today, the nation's 14 political parties and 20 human rights groups are integral to Egypt's "international image". There is even a human rights desk in the Foreign Ministry and another in the prosecutor general's office. But is image all there is to it? Ironically, despite their proliferation and their 13 years' experience in the field, Egypt's human rights groups readily admit that they have failed to meet their goals. Indeed, they do not even come close to being a grass-roots movement. There would seem to be a consensus among them that their major success to date has been obtaining official recognition for their discourse on the necessity of respecting human rights. "The president, the house speaker and various officials frequently stress respect for human rights. The fact that much needs to be done to achieve this does not lessen the significance of this sort of discourse," argues Hafez Abu Se'da, secretary general of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR). "Without [groups such as] EOHR, there would be no [government-sponsored] human rights desk in the Foreign Ministry or in the prosecutor general's office, for that matter," he says. Baheieddin Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Right Studies (CIHRS) and formerly secretary general of the EOHR for four successive terms, points to the changes in the discourse of the press. "Take a look at the newspapers 10 or 12 years ago and compare them with what you see today: phrases such as 'prisoners of conscience' and 'human rights violations' are widely recognised and are no longer alien to many people," he said. Moreover, this change of discourse has also been adopted by the political parties, in their statements and their manifestos, as well as by Islamic-oriented groups such as the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. There are also "signs", Hassan adds, that the average Egyptian is more or less aware of the existence of human rights groups in his/her country, even if this knowledge is often vague and unclear. He recalls, "Sometimes we receive mail where the only thing written on the address is 'the human rights organisation' , 'the International Organisation for Human Rights' or 'The Cairo Organisation', and nothing else. This is an indication of some awareness of our existence -- as well as of the true nature of that awareness." Hassan points out that people often need to reach human rights organisations, but cannot do so, or do not know how. In his opinion, this painful reality is largely the fault of the government. "We are not recognised, we don't have channels for mobilisation such as newspapers or a radio station. How are we supposed to reach the people?" he asks. In a paper entitled "Human Rights in Egypt: The Cause, the Movement and the Dilemma", which was published as part of the American University in Cairo's Cairo Papers, volume 17, Hani Shukrallah, a former member of the EOHR's board of trustees, stressed the need for the Egyptian human rights movement to root itself in Egyptian reality. This, he argues, can be achieved only when the Egyptian human rights movement links its activities to the daily struggles of various sectors of the population for their rights. According to Shukrallah, the local human rights movement should not be satisfied by merely copying the activities of international human rights organisations, which, naturally, focus on the monitoring of violations in various countries. While acknowledging the importance of the local groups' "monitoring role", he warns against a situation whereby "the raison d'être of human rights organisations becomes no longer the improvement of human rights conditions in the country, but merely the monitoring and recording of abuses." Estranged from the people and unable to help build or integrate with a grass-roots network, such groups, he suggests, would be condemned to isolation; their most important possession, their fax machine. Amir Salem, director of the Legal Research and Resource Centre for Human Rights (LRRCHR), believes that human rights education holds the answer to this dilemma. It was in response to this problem that "we formulated the 'Popular Education for Human Rights' programme, which we teach in regular workshops," Salem explains. A former EOHR activist, Salem says he left the "intelligentsia" in order to try and create a popular human rights culture. On the other hand, Suzanne Fayad, director of El-Nadim Centre for the Management and Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, admits that over the past five years, her centre has only received 470 cases. This failure to build support at the grass-roots goes hand in hand with the failure to achieve any concrete improvement in human rights conditions in Egypt, she pointed out. According to Abu Se'da, this failure should not be blamed entirely on the human rights groups themselves. There will never be any improvement, he argues, "unless there is cooperation between the government and the human rights movement". The failure to become a grass-roots movement can be partly attributed to the fact that the government does not recognise human rights groups as legal bodies, says Abu Se'da. "To reach the people, you have to sit with them, hold mass meetings. But if political parties are not allowed to practice this right, even though they are legal, do you think human rights groups will be permitted to do so, in the light of the emergency laws?" he asks. The vast majority of such groups are registered as civil companies. The reason they do not apply for a license to operate as associations, they say, is because law 32 of 1964 on NGOs severely curtails the right of free association. This law applies particularly to organisations acting in defense of political, social and civil rights. EOHR is a case in point. Its attempt to register as a legal NGO has been rejected by the Ministry of Social Affairs and its appeal against the decision has been pending in court since 1992. But even if it were possible, it is not always easy to reach out to the masses. Nor is it always the first priority of Egypt's human rights activists. Gasser Abdel-Razek, director of the Cairo Human Rights Legal Aid Centre (CHRLA), argues that his organisation is not, and never will be, a grassroots movement. "Our goal is not to create a human rights-oriented public, because that is the work of political parties," he told the Weekly. His argument reflects the long-running debate as to whether human rights groups should, in an ideal world, be mass organisations, or work simply as isolated academic think-tanks. This argument, which was the cause of major rifts in the EOHR, has never really been resolved. Optimists would argue that this debate testifies to the extraordinary richness of human rights thinking in Egypt. Today, the spectrum of the human rights movement reflects the tension between these two trends. Yet despite the quality of such theoretical disputes, the fact remains that the movement as a whole has not succeeded in disseminating the notions and concepts of human rights as they promised themselves they would in their original mandates. Observers, however, still hail their success in establishing themselves as independent actors on the Egyptian political scene, whose support is increasingly sought out not only by the government, but also by the legally-recognised political parties and other political groups. Mustafa Kamel El-Sayed, professor of political science at Cairo University, argues that human rights groups have in effect sown a culture of human rights among a large number of young people in Egypt. "They succeeded in putting the question of human rights on the agenda for public debate, and have made respect for human rights a basic criterion for the acceptance and legitimacy of any government policy, or any vision of the future of the country," El-Sayed told the Weekly. It is true, he admitted, that these groups remain largely unknown to the vast majority of people in the country, many of whom may well take a cynical view of human rights issues. "But given the limitations on action, the inability to reach out to society and [recognising] that the struggle for human rights is one that can be won only over a number of generations, what has been accomplished so far is quite considerable," he added. The nature of the political system in Egypt has to be taken into account too, El-Sayed stressed: "It has moved from hard authoritarianism to soft authoritarianism. But all the time, it remained an authoritarian regime." Moreover, he argues, democracy is not a value which is deeply cherished in Egypt, neither by the ordinary citizen, nor by the principal political organisation in the country. El-Sayed pointed to the recent disciplinary action taken by the minister of the interior against 13 police officers in the Delta and Upper Egypt for the mistreatment of citizens. "Although a mild punishment," says El-Sayed, "this clearly is a significant sign of a certain minimum respect for human rights which, in itself, is an accomplishment." But the challenges that still remain are formidable. For Amani Qandil, executive director of the Arab NGO Network, human rights groups "have a future, but it is marred by problems". Foreign funding, she says, remains their weakest point. The campaign on foreign funding may be the focus of public attention just now, but human rights activists themselves are more concerned with the new NGO draft law which will play a determining role in their future. The draft law, which attempts to remedy the flaws of law 32/1964, has become the subject of controversy due to articles imposing strict government control of the activities, internal structure and independence of NGOs. Nevertheless, the LRRCHR's Salem, who is a member of the draft committee, strikes an optimistic note: "If the law is passed, it would be the best thing that ever happened to civil society." The coming days may yet prove him right. See also: Balancing rights and duties
