CAIRO: Fourteen Egyptian human rights groups condemned on Tuesday statements made by Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi regarding the Tunisian people's revolt against the government and the regime, describing ousted Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali as the “best person who could rule Tunisia … and that the Tunisians [have experienced] an irreversible loss.” The human rights organizations denounced in a statement what they described as “the [offensive] insult of the right of … Tunisian and Arab peoples in getting rid of … dictatorial and corrupt governments, as well as their right to build democratic regimes that express their free wills.” According to the human rights groups' statement, Qaddafi — who has held his leadership position for 42 years — gave various speeches on Libyan television stations directed towards Tunisian citizens in the last few days. Qaddafi and Ben Ali were known allies. “Usually dictatorial rulers support each other,” Amr Hashem, senior researcher at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told Daily News Egypt. “Qaddafi has been ruling since 1969… [and] is called the ‘Dean of Arab rulers'.” Qaddafi said that the protests of the Tunisians were led astray by documents released to the public by WikiLeaks that disclosed the corruption in Ben Ali's administration and family life. “At [a] time when the Tunisian people managed to take real, strong steps towards democracy ... forcing the former dictatorial president to flee the country, the Libyan dictator is trying to challenge their will,” the human rights groups' joint statement said. “Qaddafi said that he visited Tunisia more than once and found the Tunisian people [to be] comfortable ... ignoring the suppression of freedoms, corruption, the detention of political and human rights activists, the restrictions against journalists ... [and] the unemployment,” the statement added. “All these factors contributed to the uprising of the Tunisian people.” The Egyptian rights groups expressed their “deepest concern over the possible negative impact of such provocative statements on the peoples' wills and desire to [realize] democracy peacefully.” “[We] call on the Arab public opinion yearning for freedom to ignore such allegations, especially [since] they were [made] by a … dictator who has been in power for decades,” the statement added.
