A regularly updated roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers.
Ethical guidelines for voters in Egypt
Egypt's semi-official Al Ahram daily said the first round of parliamentary elections on November 9 was an opportunity to move closer to democratic reforms in the country.
The daily's editorial on November 9 urged Egyptians to vote for those who provided realistic campaign promises, solutions to problems and those who "can contribute to Egypt, not on tribal or family basis". The daily said voters and candidates should remain "civil and avoid any measures that will harm the elections or distort the principles of society".
It added the participation of voters was a duty toward the country to determine its future. It said this "will prove to the world we are not less than other peoples in exercising a true democratic process that reflects our history and civilization".
Transparency first, Egyptian vote result second
Qatar's Al Watan on November 9 also commented on the first round of Egypt's legislative elections, saying its results will be important regardless of who wins.
The pro-government daily said regardless of whether the ruling National Democratic Party or the opposition won, the results should be a push for important democratic, political, economic and social changes. It said despite doubts by some these polls will not be completely honest, it noted two new elements that were introduced this time: Transparent ballot boxes and the supervision of local civil institutions.
The paper added there were complaints over the number of wealthy candidates who many say are in it for personal gain.
"The basic problem for the critics is not whether these businessmen will win, but the type of businessmen who nominate themselves and those who are close to the presidential institution," the paper opined.
But to be fair, the paper continued, the presence of rich businessmen as candidates is not enough reason for criticism because "they are responsible for the process of development and they have very important visions and programs, regardless of whether they are close to the president's son or others".
The Qatari paper said it was important for these elections to pass without fraud or accusations of foul play in order for the results to push for a new and different democratic phase in Egypt.
Some trials fair, some crooked
The London-based Al Quds Al Arabi commented on November 9 on the assassination of a defense lawyer of former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan.
It said the previous killing of a defense lawyer of another former official and the attempted assassination of third gives credence to calls by international human rights organizations to move their trial outside Iraq.
The independent Palestinian-owned daily said the slaying of defense lawyers of former regime officials being tried with Saddam Hussein showed the Iraqi government and its security services were involved in the assassinations. It added there were elements within the government seeking "revenge and don't want a trial in normal conditions that affirm the rule of law and justice in the new Iraq".
The paper blamed the US administration for insisting on keeping the trial inside Iraq because "it does not want a normal and fair trial for these people and fears it will be used as a tool for its policies in Iraq, revealing many of its secrets".
At the same time, the daily opined, it is unfortunate the United Nations and its chief, Kofi Annan, insist on questioning Syrian suspects in the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri outside Syria and "does not work on the same principle when dealing with the trial of the Iraqi president and his aides".
It described the United Nations as racist, noting former Yugoslav Serbian President Slobodan Milosovic was tried for war crimes in an international court in The Hague and "treated as a president, whereas the Iraqi president is treated differently simply because he is an Arab and a Muslim".
Temper anger against Syria with wisdom
An opinion in the London-based Al Hayat daily said on November 9 whenever opportunities of understanding between Syria and the international community increase, understanding between Syria and Lebanon declines. The article in the Saudi-financed paper warned if this situation continued, animosity between the two neighbors would widen.
It blamed the "escalation" on the Lebanese media's "incitement against Syria" from the day former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri was assassinated in Beirut in February.
It complained that the Lebanese media dealt with the report by UN chief investigator Detlev Mehlis as if it were "a final condemnation of the Syrian regime, other than the fact that the testimonies of some Lebanese opposition elements formed the general mood for Mehlis' report".
The opinion argued the Lebanese rage had further complicated conditions in Lebanon, Syria and the region. This anger, as well as the fear of the security conditions, it added, has also put Lebanon under an "international mandate". It urged the Lebanese anti-Syrian opposition to differentiate between the Syrian state and its people and to be cautious not to allow their country to be used as a tool against the Palestinian factions.
The article said the headlines of the Mehlis report, as well as the comments from Washington, Paris and London on it, "will find that Hariri's blood has become the ink to write other things that have nothing to do with the story".
French fatwa a bad move
Jordan's independent Al Ghad daily said the fatwa by France's Islamic Association forbidding participation in the riots was a defensive move that shows the Muslims in Europe are being targeted.
The mass-circulation paper, owned by private Jordanian investors, described the fatwa as an "unjustifiable mistake that consolidates a thought pattern that puts Islam in the place of the enemy in Western societies".
It said the decree had only instilled religion in a problem that has nothing to do with spiritual or political religion, but due to economic and cultural reasons. It said the angry youths who took to the streets of France were not seeking religious objectives, but were reacting to their problem of "economic and cultural isolation in France, which they chose as their home but failed to integrate in it.
"Their districts became isolated islands characterized by poverty, unemployment and frustration."
The daily said while the immigrants' religious and community leaders needed to take responsibility for stopping the riots, they should have addressed the problems and causes, not reflect "the crisis of fear suffered by the Muslim communities." It said the Muslims "are immediately blamed by issuing a fatwa as if the ongoing war between the police and the immigrant youth is a religious struggle".
Syria troubles need an Arab lobby
Jordan's mainstream Al Rai daily said on November 8 that the growing international pressure on Syria was worrying, but that there was still hope to get out of the crisis if more efforts were made to ensure stability in the region.
The mass-circulation paper, partially owned by the government, said that Jordan was confident that the Syrian leadership was cooperating with the UN probe into former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri's February assassination in Beirut. The editorial added that loosening the grip around Damascus would require steps from Syrian diplomacy to form "an Arab lobby to deal with the American administration" ahead of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's visit to Cairo this month.
It warned, however, that Syria's diplomatic efforts with the Arabs, Russia and China, as well as its commitment with the international probe, might not be enough if they are not accompanied by "defining the ulterior motives of Washington, Paris and London as they put the Middle East on the dissection table".
The paper said that Syria was right that the Hariri probe would be politicized, adding that there was now "close observation of the American military offensives in Iraq near the Syrian border, where there is fear these operations would expand into the Syrian territories on the pretext of chasing terrorist elements".
It insisted that finding an exit for the Syrian crisis was a protection of Arab national interests, individually and collectively.
Wipe out European Islam
Lebanon's As Safir said on November 8 that while the riots in France were an internal matter, its implications and dangers raises the issue of Islam in France, Europe and the rest of the world.
The independent daily said that the unrest was not simply an "uprising of the poor against injustice", but an expression of rage by a marginalized French sector that found itself at the bottom of the social ladder that has been used by the system for racist campaigns.
"However, this segment [of society] includes Muslim youth, or of Muslim origins, who have become outlaws," it argued, adding that they were not seeking the "Islamization of French society or imposing Islamic laws". The most serious aspect of the French riots, the paper continued, was that it has no "social horizon that could unite all the poor of France, and has no political or security solution except to close the doors of immigration and plan to deport large numbers of suspects. It might have no solution but to wipe out so-called European Islam."
French Muslims target of Zionists
The Saudi Al Jazirah daily complained on November 8 that Muslims were being blamed for the unrest in France, saying that before the eruption of the riots, the Muslim community there had been a "target by Zionists and the French xenophobic rightwing".
The pro-government paper said that while one cannot deny that there were Muslims involved in the unrest, "there are also others who live in these wretched neighborhoods and there are Muslims who condemned the riots".
It added that those who are trying to exploit the Arab and Muslim presence in France and the rest of Europe are seeking to find solutions that serve their agendas, saying that they were "working against France and its interests".
It said that France was known for its civilized approach in the international arena and is concerned with giving an example of co-existence. "Therefore, France will be cautious from the incitement of the racists", the Saudi paper predicted.
US torture rife in secret prisons
Bahrain's Al Ayam daily on November 8 commented on the recent release of three Bahrainis from the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, saying that the detention center still held "innocent prisoners from all over the world, including three other Bahrainis".
The privately owned paper insisted that repression and torture was continuing in Guantanamo, adding that the "American war administration is far from justice, human rights and fighting terror".
It said that the families of the detainees in Guantanamo would not be happy until this prison is "demolished just as the French revolution destroyed the Bastille prison".
The pro-government daily said that international human rights organizations have confirmed that Guantanamo is not the only prison that the US administration has established, adding that there were such other prisons filled with detainees across Europe and perhaps some Arab countries.
It complained that no one knows where these prisoners were being held without charges and said that it expected that they were being "tortured by the American guards, of whom we have seen examples in Abu Ghraib".
The paper opined that the "inhuman American methods will continue so long as the United Nations is busy with the question of the Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis more than half a century ago".
Riot anger not down to Islam
The Jordan Times said in its editorial on November 7 that religion had little to do with the raging riots, even if most of the youngsters torching cars and schools are Muslims. "But their being Muslim has nothing to do with their being angry," the daily argued, saying that they were angry because they are unemployed and poor.
The paper, partially owned by the government, added that the problem in France, as elsewhere, will not be solved by "alleviating the symptoms, but by addressing the real causes". It said that the new generation of Arab immigrants do not feel "full-fledged Westerners although the strings to their Muslim and Arab heritage grows thinner".
It criticized "so-called analysts" for "easy and simplistic generalizations by indulging more than they should in clash-of-civilization-like scenarios".
The English-language paper insisted that immigrants "are faced with the realization that a European passport is neither a safeguard against discrimination nor a guarantee of equal opportunities". The daily warned that while the police might temporarily restore order, "much needs to be done to restore hope".
Rioting for liberty, fraternity, equality
The London-based Al Quds Al Arabi said on November 7 that the "youth uprising" in French towns erupted because of the absence of "liberty, fraternity and equality" for the immigrants in the country.
The independent Palestinian-owned daily argued that it was not poverty and bad social conditions that led to the riots in France, because that would mean the rest of the world would be "facing endless uprisings since nine-tenths of the world's population suffer from these problems".
It said that uprisings erupt only when certain conditions exist, starting with a general sense among the people of injustice and discrimination, when they feel that, "there is nothing to lose when taking part in violence and finding a specific party to blame for the injustice".
The paper urged France to look at itself carefully in the mirror after these events to discover "what it has avoided to discover".
It said that all forms of discrimination and racism within the French system must end, adding that perhaps this "uprising" was the start of a "real French revolution that leads to liberty, fraternity and equality".
Praise for French authorities
Qatar's Al Watan daily on November 7 praised the French authorities' handling of the riots in France for keeping the casualty rates low, though demonstrators torched thousands of cars and shops.
"But this does not mean there is not a problem of marginalizing the minorities in France or that the angry immigrants don't have enough reasons to feel the rage," the paper opined.
It added, however, that the way that the security services dealt with the riots was very "civilized", saying that it shows that integrating the minorities can be resolved, even partially, if there is an "honest intention and desire to do so from everyone".
The pro-government daily said that the French government should not be blamed completely for the events, saying that the immigrants were partly to blame for their impoverished conditions.
It insisted that the first three immigrant generations of Africans and Arabs have contributed to widening the gap between them and the "original residents by closing up on themselves, taking easy jobs and neglecting their education. Their children are today paying the price for a problem that has been growing for half a century".
It said that the government might have believed the silence of the immigrants over their difficult conditions indicated their satisfaction with these conditions and did not consider the possibility of an eruption like this.
The important matter, the paper continued, is that not one single life has been lost, insisting that this is what "distinguishes a civilized state from another that is not".
War on terror globalizing prisons
London-based Al Hayat commented on November 7 on reports of violating the rights of suspected terrorism prisoners, saying that the "war on terror" appears to be "globalizing the prisons".
The Saudi-financed daily said that American troops arrest suspected terrorists and hand them over to another country to "throw them in secret prisons" for long periods of time, adding that the investigations often do not reach conclusions.
It insisted that there was also a "globalization of torture, as if deporting the prisoners away from American territories to countries known for their inhuman treatment of detainees absolves the United States of responsibility".
The paper, distributed in most Arab capitals, said that it was as if sending off prisoners to secret detention centers in other countries was like a "business that is accepted and legitimate in today's standards", adding that these countries were providing the "infrastructure and qualified human resources to provide such services".
The countries that are hosting the secret prisons, it said, were doing "nothing more than being contracted for the demanded services in the international market; rather, the American market".
It stressed that the US Guantanamo prison has become a headache for Washington, that most of the detainees were there because they were "on the other side", and that they have not carried out any terrorist acts.
The paper said that the only solution was to send these prisoners to their home countries to be tried, adding that for them to remain in secret prisons meant that they would neither be found innocent or guilty. "This is an inhuman scandal that cannot continue," it said.
Review of Arab editorials
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