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Begin New Search Topic Human Rights Content Type Research Paper Publication Year within 25 Years

11. Tunisia: Human Rights Organizations, Political Islam and its Groups

Author:
Mohamed Sahbi Khalfaoui
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
How can we understand the relation of political Islam in Tunisia with the human rights system in its indivisibility and universality? Since the establishment of the Tunisian Islamic Movement in the early seventies, it has worked extensively to articulate public positions addressing issues of human rights and freedoms. This relationship sprang from a dual position which juxtaposed full hostility to personal freedoms such as sexual rights and a relatively positive interaction with public freedoms. Then came the deliberations and process of ratification of the 2014 Constitution which was special in its emphasis on equality between women and men, freedom of belief, and criminalization of accusation of blasphemy. The repression of Islamists in Tunisia in the 1980s and 1990s was the most important factor that defined their position, views, and engagement with human rights principles. After the fall of former Tunisian President Zine El Abedine Ben Ali in 2011, the return of the Islamist Ennahda (Renaissance) Movement to public activity was one of the most important features of the new political phase in the country. The Tunisian society was split between supporters and opponents of such a development. With the return of Ennahda and the emergence of other Islamist groups, especially the Salafis, the debate resumed over the position of Islamists towards human rights. While they attempted to include Islamic law (Sharia) as the main source of legislation in the constitution, Islamists continued to declare their belief in human rights principles. Some analysts were optimistic concerning a transformation in the Islamist ideology, while others insisted that Islamists were duplicitous, waiting until they are empowered enough to impose their project, which is inherently hostile to human rights. This paper is an attempt to review the Islamists’ positions on human rights and how they changed over time.
Topic:
Human Rights, Islam, Constitution, and Islamism
Political Geography:
Africa, North Africa, Tunisia, Mediterranean, and Tunis

12. Islamists and Rights Activists in Egypt: The Potential for Convergence

Author:
Heba Raoul Ezzat
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
Animosity has been the keyword in the relationship between Islamists and rights advocates for most of the past few years in Egypt. Islamists turned a blind eye to many crimes committed by the regime and its security agencies between 25 January 2011 and mid-2013. On the other hand, some rights advocates took part in mobilizing and supporting the opposition movement that led to the June 2013 demonstrations and the military seizing power. However, the killings, executions, and other egregious rights violations, then the direct confrontation between the regime and rights groups culminating in a more restrictive NGO law, led rights defenders to take a firmer position, by condemning the regime, and monitoring and documenting its violations. More Islamists are expected to see an opportunity in resorting to human rights advocacy. As such, this would mean accepting more cooperation, especially in terms of monitoring and documentation through various initiatives and institutions established after 2013. Led by a new generation of actors, will this cooperation be free from ideological conflicts? The paper seeks to review, in broad brushstrokes, the contours and important turning points of the relationship between the two groups of actors and outline a possible future trajectory.
Topic:
Human Rights, International Cooperation, Islam, NGOs, and Repression
Political Geography:
Africa, United Nations, North Africa, Egypt, and Mediterranean

13. Governance and the Human Rights Movement in Morocco

Author:
Mohammad Tariq
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
This paper concludes a series on governance and human rights action in North Africa. Written by Mohammad Tariq, it presents a preliminary analysis of the issues of governance in human rights organizations in Morocco. Such a research faces methodological and practical impediments stemming from the scarcity of information on funding flows and other governance issues.
Topic:
Human Rights and Governance
Political Geography:
Morocco

14. The Problematics of Governance in the Human Rights Movement in Tunisia

Author:
Hafedh Chekir
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
ARI's project on the Future of Human Rights Action in North Africa continues to explore the governance challenges and moves in this paper to Tunisia where prominent feminist, academic and human rights defender Hafidha Chekir explores the legal environment of civil society organizations in Tunisia and how this affected their own internal governance.
Topic:
Human Rights and Governance
Political Geography:
Tunisia

15. Unsolved Dilemmas: Issues of Internal Governance in Egypt’s Human Rights NGOs

Author:
Yara Shahin
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
This paper explores the state of internal governance in Egyptian human rights NGOs. It looks at their internal structures including; decision-making processes, the existence and role of governing boards, relationships with donors, levels of accountability and representation of constituencies along with the relationship with the government within a restrictive legal and political environment. It argues that while the restrictive environment for civil society in Egypt has hindered the development of stronger internal governance mechanisms in many organizations, the internal dynamics of these organizations have also contributed to the weak internal governance structures in most of them. The dilemmas that persisted through different generations and phases of Egyptian human rights organizations include balancing activism on public issues with bureaucratization and professionalization of vehicle organizations, the difficulty for and resistance from founders/directors to leave their influential posts, developing better participatory mechanisms of accountability towards the NGOs constituencies and addressing the “stigma” of foreign funding
Topic:
Human Rights and Governance
Political Geography:
Egypt

16. Revolutionary Youth Movements, Religiosity and Identity Politics in Egypt

Author:
Fouad Halbouni
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
This paper explores how the emergence of revolutionary youth movements have destabilized the different forms of political and religious identification inherited from the world of the Mubarak regime. I am interested basically in showing how revolutionary politics introduced new forms of identification that broke with the exclusionary binaries upon which Mubarak's world was based. In order to track those transformations, one needs to take a second look at revolutionary politics, its disruptive force of all existent grounds upon which these political and religious identities had root themselves
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
Egypt

17. Origins, Evolution and Challenges to the Human Rights Movement in Tunisia

Author:
Asma Nouira
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
This is the third and last survey paper on the evolution and challenges of Human Rights Action in North Africa. It is focused on the evolution and challenges of the human rights movement in Tunisia. The first organized group was the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights in 1977 (Ligue Tunisienne de la Défense des Droits de l’Homme, LTDH). The LTDH remained the only organization active in the field of human rights throughout the first decade of the history of the Tunisian human rights movement. Since its inception, the LTDH has acted as a refuge for political activists of various ideological and political backgrounds, sometimes resulting in conflating political and rights’ activism, despite attempts by the founders to separate the two fields
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
Tunisia

18. The Evolution of Morocco’s Human Rights Movement

Author:
Mohamed Kadiri
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
This study is the second paper ARI publishes as part of our ambitious "Future of Human Rights Action in North Africa". In this paper, Mohamed Kadiri, tackles the evolution of the human rights movement in Morocco through studying the context and conditions under which human rights actors appeared and the influences that shaped their development, current challenges and could dictate their future prospects.
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
Morocco

19. The Formal Birth of the Human Rights Movement in Egypt

Author:
Yasmine Shash
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
This paper analyzes a chronology of Egypt’s human rights movement since its birth in 1985 going through its different phases and generations until 2016. It starts with a brief history of the Egyptian Organization of Human Rights, the challenges it faced and the conceptual differences that led to its fragmentation in early 1994.
Topic:
Human Rights
Political Geography:
Egypt

20. Mixed, Perilous and Other Migrations: Do African Lives Matter?

Author:
Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Ìrìnkèrindò: a Journal of African Migration
Abstract:
This is a trying period for anyone that pays attention to African migration. Migrants’ gruesome deaths while in transit are given more coverage. Of these, those in the Mediterranean Sea, and to a lesser extent, the Sahara Desert make it more into the news. But there are also deaths in places in-between. Some are reported. Others are not. One only gets glimpses of such deaths when repatriated migrants mention or lament them. There has been more coverage of Libyan “Slave auctions,” at least after CNN released taped evidence from such markets (Elbagir, Razek, Platt, & Jones, 2017). The African Union (AU) and selected African states, including Nigeria, (which by dint of its sheer population size in the African continent, has more citizens caught up in the movements of migrants intent on getting out of their countries to realize dreams of social, economic and political security elsewhere), belatedly responded (Ibuot & Okopie, 2017; Daily Nation, 2017; Busari, 2017). Some have not bothered to do so. It is amazing that Nigeria and other African countries have embassies and diplomatic representative in Libya, yet, there was no previous report, awareness, response, nor were any measures whatsoever taken to document, respond to, and correct the abuses of citizens and violation of their human rights. What then is the value and utility of diplomatic representation? How do African governments understand their responsibilities to citizens? What is the function of the media in these countries? What is the duty of the AU?
Topic:
Diplomacy, Government, Human Rights, Migration, Media, and Violence
Political Geography:
Africa and African Union