If you had asked most Egyptian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in human rights what Egypt's new National Council for Human Rights - set up under the chairmanship of former UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali in January - had accomplished in its first 10 months, the answer would have been a resounding: "Nothing!"
That changed in early December. That's when the council did what it has been promising to do since its formation: Recommend to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak the abolition of the Emergency Law that has buried civil liberties for 20 years. The council has not made its recommendations to Mubarak public, but will issue its report in February.
The emergency law allows the government to stifle dissent, wreck press freedom, severely limit rights of assembly, and detain and imprison people for long periods without trial or access to legal counsel. It was adopted to rein in extremist Islamist elements in the aftermath of the assassination of President Anwar Sadat, and has more recently been used as a "weapon against terrorism".
In recent months, expectations that the emergency law might be scrapped have been raised following comments by high-ranking government officials and pledges from the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) to broaden democracy in Egypt. The formation of the human rights council itself had been seen as a promising sign. The 27-member council was authorized by Egypt's cabinet just after the war in Iraq as the United States pressured Arab nations to adopt political reforms.
As with most things in the Middle East, the council and its work have been filled with ambiguities and contradictions. For example, many of the council's board members are representatives of the very human rights groups that have become the council's harshest critics. And these and all other NGOs in Egypt continue to operate under an NGO law that requires them to report foreign contributions to the government, and gives the government the right to remove members of their boards. Some 15 human rights organizations have boycotted the work of the council, refusing to participate in its work until the emergency law is repealed.
One of these NGOs is the Cairo Institute For Human Rights Studies. Says the council's program officer, Moataz Al Fegiery: "NGOs consider the establishment of this council an attempt to decorate the government externally, but no one really believes in it. The government can prove its will to reform by taking urgent steps to end the emergency law or combating the epidemic spread of torture or announcing a timetable for political reform, but none of this is happening."
And the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (OEHR), whose general secretary is a member of the council's board, says that before his group can recognize the council, "The government has first to abolish the emergency law, free political prisoners and apologize officially to all those who were tortured in police stations and prisons."
Indeed, shortly after Mubarak announced formation of the council, Boutros-Ghali told the press the emergency law would be repealed "in three weeks", and the council prepared a memorandum recommending repeal. But it then postponed presentation of the memorandum to Mubarak, citing the need for "further study".
Critics believe the council thereby "failed in its first test to prove its commitment to solving human rights problems and is nothing more than window dressing." Says Hafez Abou Saeda, the OEHR's general secretary and a council board member: "The matter does not need further consideration. What is needed is..."the end of the state of emergency... the source of all human rights violations. The commitment to political reform and the continuation of the state of emergency are contradictory and can in no way occur together."
Government-controlled human rights bodies have now been established in a number of countries in the Middle East and North Africa. But many observers see this development as largely a cosmetic effort by authoritarian governments to keep international donors happy and ward off threats of "democracy imposed from outside". Most government-sponsored human rights organizations are advisory only and lack executive authority to implement their findings.
But despite their lack of tangible achievements, these bodies are further evidence of what The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman refers to as the Middle East's "reform industry". There has probably never been a time in history when there has been more open discussion of political, social and economic reform in the Arab world. While some of this is doubtless a kind of push-back against the threat of externally imposed reforms, there are many hopeful signs that thoughtful Arabs are finding their collective voice and making themselves heard in the corridors of power.
Western governments and international human rights and civil society organizations can too easily derail these fragile efforts through 'imperial hubris' - seeking to impose reforms. Or they can offer and be ready to deliver what professor Joseph Nye of Harvard calls "soft power". The West should have learned from America's disastrous Iraqi adventure that heavy-handed pressure is counter-productive.
William Fisher is a frequent contributor the Middle East Times.
Egypt's human rights model
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