By Brendan Sweeney
The annual report is the third published by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) and presents an overview of the situation of human rights NGOs in countries north and south of the Mediterranean in 2009.
Ashraf Mikhail, a Project Coordinator in the Department of Freedoms and Participation at the Danish Institute for Human Rights helped to compile the report:
“The report was launched in Cairo in 13 January 2010 with a lot of media attention, because it come out just before Egypt UPR [Universal Periodic Review]. One of the positive side-effects of this was that the Egyptian government promised to add amendments to their law on NGO to improve it,” he said.
However, the report indicates that in some countries in the eastern and southern Mediterranean, national legislation continues to hamper the ability of human rights organisations to carry out their work. In Libya, for instance, there are laws to prohibit the formation of any group considered to be promoting ideas that undermine the revolution, while in Tunisia human rights defenders were subjected to harassment and physical attacks in the lead-up to the presidential elections in October 2009.
Free and robust civil society is essential for democratic development and freedom of association is one of the basic civil and political human rights, first laid down in article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and later on in article 22 in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
It guarantees the freedom to collaborate within an organisational context without government intervention, in order to realise a mutual goal. In exercising this right, the law of the country shall be respected by those groups and organisations on the one hand; on the other hand the state must respect and protect freedom of association in society.
The 2009 EMHRN report includes reviews of the human rights situation in Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, the Palestinian Territories, Tunisia, Turkey, and the European Union countries bordering the Mediterranean.
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