Amnesty International Report 2008

Middle East and North Africa
“Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 60 years on”

Sixty years ago, representatives of several Middle Eastern governments participated in the negotiations to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria were among the 48 states with the vision to adopt the Declaration. Saudi Arabia, along with the Soviet Union and South Africa’s apartheid government, was among the eight who abstained.

Six decades on, it might have been expected that with such initial support the UDHR would have had greater impact on the lives of those in the Middle East and North Africa region. Yet, the region has lagged behind Africa, the Americas and Europe in developing effective legal frameworks and enforcement systems for the promotion and protection of people’s human rights. Indeed, certain states, such as Saudi Arabia and some of the Gulf states, are yet to become party to the two key International Covenants spawned directly from the UDHR, those concerning Civil and Political Rights, and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – both of which most other states ratified many years ago. Similarly, Iran is one of very few states that thus far has failed to become party to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

Indeed, it is only now, in the 60th anniversary year of the UDHR, that an Arab Charter on Human Rights is about to take effect. This Charter has positive features which enlarge on the rights enshrined in international human rights treaties, but it also has severely negative aspects – such as failing to outlaw the executing of children – that states could seek to use to undermine their obligations under binding global standards.

The international human rights system has been slow to develop in the Middle East and North Africa region for many and complex reasons. To an extent the UDHR was depicted by many leaders as representing an attempt to impose “western” values in the aftermath of the Second World War. The UDHR’s references to non-discrimination, for example, jarred with legal and customary systems in countries in the region, views on freedom of religion, and the different roles and positions of women and men.

Such concerns, however, might have been overcome were it not for other key developments in 1948, namely the creation of the state of Israel and the resulting dispossession of the Palestinian population. This building of a Jewish state in the midst of the Arab Muslim world had a cataclysmic effect, setting off effectively a continuing state of war between Israel and its Arab neighbours. The dispossession of the Palestinians and the creation of a Palestinian refugee population in exile created a challenging situation that remains unresolved and which has been punctuated by recurrent bursts of fighting between Israel and its neighbours – most recently, the 34-day war between Israel and Hizbullah in 2006.

Popular sentiments are often exploited for political expediency. Thus, it is largely the “threat” posed by Israel that the Syrian, and to an extent the Egyptian, governments have used to justify their decades-long states of emergency, while it is the “threat” posed to Israel by its Arab neighbours that is used to justify Israel’s militaristic policies and to secure its continuing Western support. The international community’s failure to end Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinian Territories, and to ensure a durable solution which recognizes and guarantees the fundamental rights of both Israelis and Palestinians, throws a dark shadow over the wider region, and remains a potential source of regional or global confrontation.

Governments in the region continue to focus on “state security” and “public safety” to the detriment of human rights, and the lives of their citizens. This has been exacerbated since the onset of the “war on terror”. Grievous human rights abuses continue to be both widespread and firmly entrenched in many Middle Eastern and North African states. Despite talk of greater democracy, good governance and accountability, most power remains firmly in the grasp of small elites – the clerical oligarchy in Iran; civilians with close links to the military in Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia; religious minorities in the Gulf states; secularist Ba’athists in Syria. All are largely unaccountable to those they govern.

Throughout the region, state power is maintained, and dissenting voices or debate repressed, by all-powerful security and intelligence services. Those who speak up risk arbitrary arrest and detention without trial, torture and other ill-treatment by security police whose political masters allow them to abuse human rights with impunity. Such victims all too often have no means of remedy or redress. Courts lack independence and are subservient to the executive powers of the state.

Western governments used at least to speak out about such abuses and advocate a process of change, even if they were unprepared to risk their economic interests and, indeed, had themselves pursued grossly repressive policies in the colonial period. Since 11 September 2001, however, even their criticism has become muted. In pursuit of the “war on terror”, the USA and other Western states have made allies among the security and intelligence services of some of the most repressive regimes in the region. They have secretly “rendered” suspects to states such as Egypt, Jordan and Syria, so they can be detained, interrogated and tortured, or they have deported them to Algeria or Tunisia despite such risk. In doing so, they have not only breached international law, but helped entrench the abusive methods of the region’s security apparatus.

Today, hope for reform lies primarily with the growing generation of young people in the region, who increasingly ask why they cannot access or enjoy their inalienable human rights. The growing reach of satellite broadcasting and rising internet usage, means the space for debate cannot now so readily be closed down.

The assumptions of the region’s ruling elites are being called into question. There is a pressure to adapt, and to become more accountable to the populations they represent. Slowly a transformation is beginning. The signs are all around – the “One Million Signatures” and “Stop Stoning Forever” campaigns of human rights activists in Iran; protests by judges demanding greater judicial independence in Egypt; the emancipation of women in Kuwait; efforts in Morocco to confront the abuses of the past and to abolish the death penalty; the strength of purpose shown by the jailed signatories of the Damascus Declaration in Syria; and the community bridge-building efforts of Israeli and Palestinian organizations working for human rights.

With such initial support, it might have been expected that the Declaration would have had greater impact on the lives of those in the region
Governments in the region continue to focus on 'state security' and 'public safety', to the detriment of human rights and the lives of their citizens.
2007 under review
Conflict

Almost five years after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussain, 2007 saw little easing of the conflict in Iraq. Early in the year US President George W. Bush committed an additional 26,000 troops to a major “surge” intended to improve security, but human rights abuses remained widespread and involved a variety of perpetrators – Shi’a and Sunni armed groups and militias, Iraqi government forces and the US-led Multinational Force (MNF). Sectarian violence caused thousands of deaths, and gross mutilation and torture. Many Iraqis were forced to flee their homes – some 2 million refugees and a further 2.2 million internally displaced. Towards the end of the year, US and Iraqi government sources suggested the “surge” had proved effective, contributing to a fall in the number of civilian killings and the return of some refugees, but attacks remained frequent and conditions for most Iraqis were dire. More than 60,000 people were being detained without trial by the US-led Multinational Force and the Iraqi authorities; torture was common and used by Iraqi security forces with impunity; and those accused of attacks and killings were hauled before courts where they failed to get a fair trial, yet, increasingly, were sentenced to death.

As 2007 closed, Turkish troops were massing along the border with Iraq to launch attacks against Turkish Kurdish separatists based there. The increasingly strident war of words between the US and Iranian governments threatened the entire Gulf.

The situation was no better in the Israel-occupied Palestinian Territories. Palestinian armed groups continued to fire home-made "qassam" rockets indiscriminately against southern Israel, causing civilian casualties, while Israel used its military might to hit back, killing and injuring Palestinian civilians. At the same time, the Israeli authorities continued to expand illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, maintain strict controls on Palestinians’ movements and build a “protective” wall/fence for which they expropriated increasing amounts of Palestinian lands.

In the West Bank and Gaza, the impact of these measures was exacerbated by deepening divisions within the Palestinian community. Clashes in the first half of the year between rival Palestinian security forces and armed groups loyal to Fatah and Hamas climaxed in June when Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip, leaving the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority to administer no more than the West Bank. Immediately, the international community cut aid to Gaza and the Israeli authorities mounted a blockade – enforcing collective punishment on the Gaza Strip’s 1.5 million population. The impact was heaviest on the most vulnerable – children, the elderly and the sick. Those suffering life-threatening illnesses were prevented from leaving the territory to seek medical help.

In August in Iraq, Mostafa Ahmad, a taxi driver and Palestinian refugee, was abducted by armed men apparently from the Mahdi Army. Two days later his abductors used his mobile phone to tell his family to collect his body from the morgue; he had been tortured with a drill, his teeth had been ripped out, and he had been shot six times.
The families of Abdallah Hsein Bisharat and Ahmad Abdallah Bani Odeh, totalling some 40 people, most of them children, were made homeless in August, when Israeli forces destroyed several homes and animal pens in Humsa, a small village in the Jordan Valley area of the West Bank. The army also confiscated the villagers' water tanks and tractor. The villagers had been forced to move from nearby Hadidiya to Humsa after the Israeli army threatened to destroy their homes. The army considers the site a "closed military area" to be used by Israeli forces for shooting practice.
'War on terror'

The impact of the “war on terror” remained profound across the region and was exacerbated by attacks such as those carried out by an armed group in Algeria which claimed the lives of some 130 people, including many civilians. These deplorable attacks were condemned absolutely by Amnesty International, but they did not justify the widespread human rights violations that continued to be committed in the name of the “war on terror” and which targeted many people not involved in either terrorism or other violence.

At the end of the year, Yemenis comprised the largest single group held at the US prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Some nationals of other states, such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, were returned to their home countries. Usually detained on arrival, a number were soon released, although others were tried and sentenced to prison terms. In Saudi Arabia, returnees were subject to a “reform” programme, details of which were scarce, including whether it was voluntary or coerced. In some cases – such as those of two men returned to Libya and then apparently detained without trial – their fate was uncertain at the end of the year.

In Saudi Arabia, as in other countries, the “war on terror” was also used by authorities to justify repressive measures that long predated the emergence of al-Qa’ida. Extreme powers of arbitrary arrest, secret and incommunicado detention, and search and seizure were deployed not only against suspected terrorists but also more broadly to stifle dissent. In Egypt, leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood were charged and, although civilians, sent before a military court by presidential order after a civilian court dismissed all charges against some of them. In Morocco, more than 100 people were detained as suspected Islamist militants.

Detention without trial, torture and other ill-treatment
Thousands of people across the region were detained without trial for political reasons. The Egyptian authorities were reported to hold some 18,000 administrative detainees, including some arrested years previously, although the Interior Ministry contended that those held numbered no more than 1,500. The Saudi Arabian government disclosed that 9,000 people had been detained since 2003, more than 3,000 of whom continued to be held in July 2007. The Israeli government held more than 800 Palestinians as administrative detainees. They, like the more than 8,000 other Palestinians, including children, who the Israeli authorities held on remand or who were serving sentences, were mostly held in Israel, in breach of international law and effectively preventing family visits.

Detainees – both political prisoners and criminal suspects – were commonly subject to torture and other ill-treatment by security police whose modus operandi was to beat “confessions” out of those they suspected, with impunity. In political cases, they were assisted in several countries by courts whose judges repeatedly ignored pre-trial torture, denying defence lawyers’ requests that defendants be medically examined and delivering guilty verdicts based solely on “evidence” obtained through torture. Syria’s Supreme State Security Court was but one example. Ominously, the Libyan authorities established a State Security Court, reviving memories of the unfair, discredited People’s Court they abandoned only in 2005.

Cruel and inhuman punishments such as flogging and amputation were used in several countries, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

A video clip released in April showed images of prisoners being tortured in al-Hair Prison, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The government said it would investigate the incident and the prison authorities later said that one soldier had been disciplined for the torture and suspended for a month and another had been suspended for 20 days for failing to intervene and stop the assaults on prisoners. It was not known whether any independent investigation was carried out or whether the perpetrators had been brought to justice.
Restriction of freedom of expression and dissent

Most governments maintained close controls on freedom of expression and targeted journalists and others whose statements and writings, or blogs, they deemed too critical or subversive. State authorities brought criminal defamation charges against journalists and bloggers in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, UAE and Yemen. In Iran, journalists were jailed for expressing opinions; in Iraq, they were murdered by shadowy armed groups. In many countries, those who expressed dissent and political and human rights activists faced arrest and imprisonment, harassment and intimidation at the hands of state authorities.

Conversely, and despite government blocks on access, the rising use of the internet and mobile phones provided greater public access to information and, on occasion, exposed and mobilized a new pressure on authorities. In Egypt, a few moments of mobile phone film footage taken by police and circulated in the victim’s neighbourhood caused outrage and highlighted the endemic torture by police, and their sense of invulnerability. Countless words over many years had failed to achieve such impact. It threw the authorities onto the defensive, obliging them to prosecute the police responsible.

Death penalty
The death penalty continued to be used extensively in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen, whose governments remained among the world’s foremost executioners. The Iraqi authorities maintained they were responding to the desperate security situation and would prefer not to resort to such extremes. By contrast, the Maghreb states maintained their long-standing moratorium on executions, despite civilians being killed in terrorist attacks.

The Iranian authorities used executions to intimidate opponents – carrying out public hangings. The Saudi Arabian government talked of legal reform but presided over a rapid increase in executions after unfair trials. Many defendants were foreign nationals, typically poor African or Asian migrant workers, who were sentenced after trials conducted in a language they did not comprehend. Some learned that they were to be executed only shortly before their deaths. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia executed child offenders, in gross breach of international law. In Iran, those executed included people convicted of morality crimes; at least one was stoned to death. In Yemen and Syria too, there were executions, often after unfair trials. In Yemen, one convicted child offender, Hafez Ibrahim, was saved only hours before he was due to be executed by shooting – after an urgent call made to Amnesty International, and President ‘Ali Abdullah Saleh intervened following international appeals.

In December, Algeria’s representative voted in support of the worldwide moratorium on executions agreed by the UN General Assembly. The Moroccan, Lebanese and UAE representatives abstained and the Tunisian representative failed to vote. There had been concern the Arab states might vote against the moratorium as a bloc; their refusal to do so was an encouraging development.

In December, Algeria's representatives voted in support of the worldwide moratorium on executions agreed by the UN General Assembly.
Violence against women

In countries such as Algeria, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Tunisia and Yemen, women held cabinet posts in government or seats in the national parliament or occupied leading roles in a widening range of professions.

Nevertheless, women remained subordinate in status to men under family laws and other legislation in most of the region. Violence against women remained widespread and deep-seated, often a product of prevailing social and cultural norms, facilitated and exacerbated by the failure of state authorities to address abuses. In Egypt, almost 250 women were reported to have been killed in the first half of 2007 by violent husbands or other family members; on average two women were raped every hour and genital mutilation of girls was widely practised despite now being totally illegal. “Honour killings” continued to be perpetrated in Jordan, Syria and elsewhere. In southern Iraq women were killed by Shi’a militants for breaking strict dress and morality codes.

Perhaps the most emblematic case, however, occurred in Saudi Arabia, where a male-headed court sentenced a young woman to flogging and imprisonment although it accepted that she had been the victim of a gang-rape. Her offence? She had been in the company of a male friend when the two of them were attacked by the rapists. Following wide publicity, the case against her was withdrawn after the King issued a pardon in December.

In this regard too, however, there were encouraging developments. In particular, two leading Muslim clerics – Syria’s Grand Mufti Ahmed Badreddin Hassoun and Lebanon’s most senior Shi’a cleric, Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah – both spoke out firmly against “honour crimes” and other violence against women, denouncing such abuses as un-Islamic.

In June, the Criminal Court in Jordan sentenced a man to a reduced six-month sentence for murdering his unmarried sister, because it accepted that he had killed her "in a fit of fury" after she said she was pregnant.
Refugees and migrants

Continuing conflict and human rights abuses led thousands more Iraqis to flee their homes. More than two million were internally displaced; another two million were refugees. Within Iraq, some governorates reportedly closed their borders to the displaced while Syria and Jordan, in particular, felt the strain of the refugee crisis. The international response to UNHCR’s appeal for humanitarian assistance was inadequate, although some states established resettlement schemes to take a small number of those most vulnerable.

Several hundred thousand Palestinian refugees remained marooned in impoverished camps in Lebanon, where their families had fled at the time of Israel’s creation in 1948. They continued to face discrimination and were denied access to health, education and work opportunities, despite many having lived all their lives in Lebanon. In May their plight was thrown into the spotlight when fighting broke out at Nahr al-Bared, one of the largest refugee camps near Tripoli, between members of an Islamist armed group that had taken up positions there and the Lebanese army. Some 30,000 Palestinian residents were forced to flee the camp.

Migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers from sub-Saharan African countries also faced serious difficulties in Morocco, Algeria and Libya, particularly when they sought to cross those countries and gain entry to southern Europe. In Morocco, recognized refugees were among those arbitrarily detained and dumped without adequate food or water at the country’s inhospitable border with Algeria. The Libyan authorities carried out mass arrests and deportations without considering whether the individuals were refugees genuinely fleeing persecution and in need of protection or economic migrants whose human rights they also had an obligation to respect; and amid allegations of torture and other ill-treatment. In Egypt, security forces killed at least six refugees or migrants who were attempting to cross the border into Israel.

In the Gulf states, migrant workers carrying out essential but low-paid jobs in the construction or service industries, and especially women employed in domestic service, were subject to abuses by employers and others, including rape and other sexual violence. They were denied adequate protection under the law and governing authorities showed little commitment to upholding their human rights.

Human rights defenders
Defenders – the vanguard in the struggle for human rights – faced many challenges and risks across the region. They were frequently the target of repression. In countries such as Libya and Saudi Arabia, they could hardly surface at all due to the threat from the state. In others, such as Tunisia and Egypt, they were hemmed in by official requirements that they register their NGOs in order to operate legally but had no recourse when the authorities then blocked such registration. In Syria, leading advocates of reform who had the temerity to put their names to the Damascus Declaration, were locked up, sentenced to prison terms after grossly unfair trials and subjected to rough treatment in prison. Yet, despite such vicissitudes, all across the region human rights defenders carried the torch for all those who identify with the standards set down so persuasively 60 years ago.

All across the region, human rights defenders carried the torch for all those who identify with the standards set down so persuasively 60 years ago.