Secretary General of the Arab Organization For Human Rights Stresses the Importance of Sound Governance
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Alexandria—
The BA Dialogue Forum hosted on Saturday, 23 June 2007, Mohamed Faek, Secretary General of the Arab Organization for Human Rights and Former Minister of Information, to speak in the seminar entitled "Human Rights Between the State and the Society", chaired by Dr. Nabil Helmy, Professor of International Law and Dean of the Faculty of Law, Zagazig University.
At the outset of the seminar, Mohamed Faek expressed his delight in visiting the BA, which he described as an engine of progress in the region and the entire world.
Faek started his speech by giving a historical background on human rights, which was an issue of argument and research among philosophers, and an issue of conflict among authorities. Faek stated that the "Social Contract" theory expresses two rights and two notions: the two rights are freedom and justice, and the two notions are that the legitimate state authority must be derived from the consent of the governed; and that rights, rather than power is the foundation of any political society.
He added that the idea of rights was drafted basically to fight tyranny, and the dominance of authorities, and referred to the participation of Arabs and Muslims in this context, but the west was the first to use the term "human rights", and not the first to found the concept. Faek explained that, after the issuance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, human rights and infringements thereof started to gain international concern.
Speaking of the relation between the state and the society, Faek stated that we can not ignore the concept of democracy. The United Nations drafted a committee to define the concept of democracy, which agreed on a set of elements that should be present in any democratic state. He added that in the year 2000, Kofi Anan, UN Secretary General at that time, declared that democracy is a human right, which can not be practiced without the respect of rights of the others.
He referred to the relation between development and human rights, and the responsibility of a certain state to provide the right for shelter, education, job opportunities, treatment, and decent livelihood to its inhabitants. The failure of a state to provide such rights should be an infringement to human rights.
Faek said that the mechanisms of the market need to be limited and regulated. Privatization is now extended to include security keeping such as in some African countries, which use foreign security agencies to protect their authorities, moreover, privatization includes wars. He added that a powerful state does not mean the state of individuals or beneficiaries, however, it is the institutional state that respects human rights. Faek believes that human rights on the international level are governed by double standards; Palestinians' attacks are viewed as terrorism, while Israelis' are self defense, and so on.
Faek concluded his talk by stressing the importance of sound governance, which accepts diversity and respects the other, within the framework of unity. He also focused on the respect of all international covenants concerned with human rights.