MA Sultan - محمد سلطان
Status of Human Rights in Tunisia, Syria and Egypt:
The status of violations in Tunisia was quite dire for almost every right before the revolution had been infringed and violated. According to the US Department of State Report, the oppositions, activists, and even journalists have been tortured and directly threatened upon their critiques against the regime. They questioned the transparency and conduct of elections and other violations against Human Rights, and they were met by unjust trials and denial of defendants, lawyers or any legal representation (2010 Human Rights Report: Tunisia, 2010). Such tyrannical atmosphere almost deprived the masses every possible right, like freedom of expression, assembly, or speech. In fact, the aforementioned rights were the main ones to be hit by the government (AMNESTY International Report 2011, 2011). Some scholars argued that the deteriorated economic status led to the fall of the Ben Ali (Granzer, 1999).
The status of Syria before the revolution is that different. According to the annual international report of Amnesty for year 2011, Syria reached the peak of corruption and tyranny. Detaining the opposition has become the norm in Syria and it even reached the NGO organizations and other Human Rights advocates. The arbitrary detention and torture with impunity has become the predominant figure of Syria. The report also added that Syria has been under the state of emergency since 1967 which put the regime in a position to repeatedly violate all possible rights of the citizens in order to undermine any potential uprising through spreading terror in the hearts of the masses by carrying out brutal strategies by the executive instruments (AMNESTY International Report 2011, 2011).
In case of Egypt, the AMNESTY report of year the 2011 has also pointed out that the same violations took place, namely, severe restrictions on freedoms of expression, speech, assembly and association. Moreover, the opposition along with the criticizing journalists were being threatened and trialed before military court, and even when they get released, they got detained again arbitrarily (AMNESTY International Report 2011, 2011).
Human Rights Organizations:
When I looked thoroughly in the three country cases, I found out that in year 2011 all of the aforementioned countries had common ill-treatments and flaws. All of the countries in that year had extremely cracked down on freedoms of expression, speech, association and assembly. It is worthy of saying that I am not limiting the violations to these rights, but those areas were the ones that got high percentage of the violations. The reports and news before the revolutionary wave in the three countries portrayed the picture that the regimes had anticipated for the uprisings and therefore were wholeheartedly trying to suppress them through every possible means.
Another aspect of the Human Rights struggle in those countries is that one occurring between the governments and the Human Rights organizations. According to Abdullahi A. An-Na'im, aProfessor of Law at Emory University, there are major problems that hinder the Human Rights organizations from achieving sound ground in their countries. Firstly, the problem of dependency has been always the cardinal argument against the organizations, for they hinge on the western funding which could be deemed as a manifestation of foreign agendas or neocolonial ideologies. Secondly, The NGOs are free to embark on and lunch their projects without being accountable of any local entities or societies in those developing areas. Thirdly, It is worthy of mentioning that the NGOs resort to the western funding because they are banned from receiving any help from the within. Those countries do not allow the NGOs to seek fund from the local political institutions or even from the governmental agencies (Na'im, 2001).
The Causes of the Arab Spring (HR related or not):
Discussing the causes of the Arab Spring is not that simple task to tackle, for it multilayered and multifaceted. On one level, a major cause of the upheavals could interpret as a manifestation of the poor political strategies implemented by the regimes, whether these regimes are corrupt or not. The ground for this argument is the lack of political maturity and literacy. Another interpretation for that wave is purely economic. In fact, this economy led account is usually raised by the proponents of the previous regimes as it aims at glamourizing it by scapegoating everything. The supporters of the tyrannical powers would justify the uprising by fierce neoliberal agendas in the region. They would even go beyond that and resort to conspiracy theory in order not to affirm the fact that those regimes were simply corrupt and had to be replaced (Nixon, 2011).
In my understanding, what has happened in the pre-evolutions era was accounted by the lack of Human Rights and far simpler than any sophisticated political or economic accounts. It was as simple as revolting against a regime that deprived the masses their basic rights. The youth was the main catalyst that spurred the change and pushed towards the reforms due to many factors, like social media, Human Rights advocacy, social awareness and aspirations, etc. (Hassan & Dyer, 2017). Thomas Sevat, a student of Political Science, expounded on his M.A. Thesis that the Arab Spring countries have went through a spiral model that has many phase. He named the first phase as the mobilization and highlighted its occurrence as what ensue the collective resentment of the masses because of lacking Human Rights (Sevat, 2014).
The stated arguments, so far, sounds more of a theoretical ground for the importance of Human Rights as the major cause of the uprisings, unlike other political and economic accounts that attached it more complicated causes. According to Eric Goldstein, the Deputy Director of Middle East and North African Division in Human Rights Watch, there are several examples that come in favor of the Human Rights account. In Egypt, one of the very few strikes that paved the way for the 25th of Jan revolution is the Kefaya movement. It emerged in 2004 for the cause of showing the masses' resentments to Mubarak's intention to a new presidential term or glamorizing his son as the new president. The movement's members, as Goldstein explains, had almost no political background, like activism, or any other opposition-oriented history. In fact, the youth has stood firmly up for their dignity as human beings rejecting the tyranny of an oppressor. A similar group on Facebook was established, called the 6th of Aril Youth, and join Kefaya in order to support the Mahalla textile workers who got detained, killed and oppressed by the police forces after their demonstration for the rights (Goldstein).
References
(2010). 2010 Human Rights Report: Tunisia. US Department of State. Retrieved from https://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2010/nea/154474.htm
(2011). AMNESTY International Report 2011. London: Amnesty International.
Granzer, S. (1999). Changing Discourse: Transnational Advocacy Networks in Tunisia and Morocco.Cambridge: Cambidge University Press.
Hassan, I., & Dyer, P. (2017). The State of Middle Eastern Youth. The Muslim World, 107(1). Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/31029084/The_Muslim_World_CIRS_Special_Issue_The_State_of_Middle_Eastern_Youth
Na'im, A. A. (2001, Aug). Human Rights in the Arab World: A Regional Perspective. Human Rights Quarterly, 23(3), 701-732. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4489353
Nixon, R. (2011, 4 14). U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings. The NewYork Times. U.S. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?_r=0
Sevat, T. (2014, July 7). The Arab Spring and Degrees of Change in Human Rights Conditions: Examining the Cases of Libya and Tunisia. Master Thesis. Netherlands: Leiden University.
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