 Welcome to all of you here tonight for this very promising panel presentation and discussion on human rights in the MENA region. This is part of our regular Tuesday seminars, that's London Middle East Institute's regular Tuesday slots, but today is special because this is a collaborative event between us at the LMEI and Centre for African Studies, and so is the School of Law. My job is very easy to just give you a very warm welcome and then hand over to my colleague Professor Mashuid Badireen from the School of Law, and he will then introduce the speakers and run the session. I just want to say that the choice of the topic reflects two things, continued and very keen interest in the subject of human rights in our region, and I don't think I need to remind everybody here that it's just over eight years since the tumultuous events that rocked the region and really opened up a lot of scope for a lot of optimism, if not euphoria, about a changing political landscape in which perhaps our governments, our rulers will heed the wishes of the majority and we will perhaps begin the long journey towards a more self-representative system of governance. And of course the last eight years have seen anything but disappointment to be honest, but the question as to where we are currently and to wish to take stock of what's happened in the last eight years is never irrelevant. And for that we have a very powerful, pertinent group of academics and experts on the subject who will be addressing you. So the proceedings are being recorded but the recording is of the panel and not of the audience, so you don't need to worry. We have a legal obligation to make an announcement about this and let me welcome you again and encourage you to keep an eye on our regular Tuesday seminars of which we have another two or so in the remaining weeks of the term in this month. So without further ado let me ask my colleague Professor Mashoud Badrin to initiate the proceedings. Just before I do that I must say that the event tonight really owes it throughout various stages from conception to delivery to the tireless efforts of my colleague Meleks Serral who on this occasion herself is also on the panel. She is a Marie Curie fellow at Suez. She's been here for us for a year and she has worked tirelessly to put together this panel and I'm really grateful to her for this and very pleased that we can also hear her on this very subject. So thank you very much. Please. Thank you so much Hassan for your welcome and also that kind introduction. My name is Mashoud Badrin, I'm a Professor of Laws at Suez Law School here and we do have a lot of interest in the minor regions also in the School of Law. Tonight we'll be looking at this very important subject of human rights in the region, the challenges and opportunities and I want to add my word to Hassan's words regarding the great effort done by Meleks Serral. She has been working on the challenges and opportunities in the minor regions particularly Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia and she has done some field study hopefully she will be sharing her experiences with us tonight. Tonight we have three experts on this subject. The first person to be speaking will be Michiana Hussain. Michiana is a lecturer in international relations and Middle East politics in the University of Oxford and she has done quite a considerable work on this subject. She is the author of the Human Rights Turn and the Paradox of Progress in the Middle East. Her global consultant as the MH Group specializes in high profile international legal and diplomatic case files before the United Nations, the African Commission and Court of Human Rights and International Criminal Court in The Hague. So both academic and practical so we hope to really enjoy her contribution this evening. She will be looking at the human rights turn and the paradox of progress in the Middle East. After she speaks we also have Moutaz El-Fegri. Moutaz is an alum of Suez doing his PhD here and he has been really doing a lot of active work in that regard. He is the Middle East and North Africa Protection Coordinator for Frontline Defenders and is the Treasurer and Member of the Executive Company of Euromete Rights. He is the former Executive Director of Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies and member of its Board of Directors since 2010. He did his PhD here at Suez as I said. I was just speaking to him a while ago. He has been shortling between Ireland and Tunisia, I mean recent times doing work in this regard. He will be speaking on regaining the ideals of the Arab Spring, the struggle of human rights defenders in changing political context. And lastly but not the least after him, Melek will speak Melek Sara. Melek is currently a Marie Curie Research Fellow at Suez School of Law. I'm working together with her on this. Before that she was a postdoctoral researcher at the URPP, Asia and Europe, investor Zurich. She received a PhD from Ludwig Maximilian's University of Monique. Her color research project on human rights in post-op horizons Middle East. Imagine these courses and practices in Egypt and Tunisia. Ames are interrogating the human rights discourses and practices in the MENA region undergoing transition as I mentioned in this introduction. Her topic will be prospects and challenges of human rights in MENA region since the 2011 Arab Uprising. We have one and a half hours. What we want to do is each of the speakers will speak just for 15 minutes. And please be on time because I really want to, because we want to have discussions and questions. So 15 minutes and after that perhaps we will have, we will take interventions and possible questions and answers in the series. So without much ado I will call on Meishada to do a presentation. 15 minutes. Thank you so much, Professor. Is the mic on? Okay, great. Yes, it's on. Thank you very much to SOAS and to all the panelists for, you know, including me on this important discussion. And thanks above all to you for being here for it and hopefully participating in the most important part, which is, as you correctly said, the exchange that's to take place afterwards. This sort of serves as a informal belated launch for my book that I published last year, The Human Rights Turn in the Paradox of Progress in the Middle East, an embarrassingly long title. And also I have to admit I suffer from eternal optimism. So if the picture that I paint of the region is rosier than the actual reality, I do apologize for that. But I feel like I have to compensate for the negativity, especially after the Arab Spring. But I refuse, I refuse to give into that. I remain hopeful. And I will tell you why you can be just as hopeful as I am, because it's not a matter of wishful thinking, but actually very kind of close study of the patterns in the region through time and across space that lead me to that conclusion. And give me the faith that I have today standing before you to sharing my kind of prognosis for the potential and the prospect for kind of human rights realization in the region. And not just there, but everywhere. So let's see, where should we begin? I think it's important to keep in mind that the United Nations in signing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights set a sort of common standard for kind of fundamental human rights across the globe. And at that time, it was agreed upon universally that there are basic human rights that apply to all. We should not open that debate up once again. This cultural relativism trap that we fall into has us questioning the universality. All you have to do is remember the events of Tahir Square. Remember the green movement in Iran for to be reminded of the universal sort of desire and universal trend that is trending towards a demand for freedom, dignity, and basic human rights. And I think that amid the sort of history of repression in the region, and let's not make light of that, of course, there has been a sort of general arc towards progress. But I will submit that this trajectory has not been linear. So progress, and this is a thesis of my book, does not take place in a linear fashion. It is rife with disappointment and pain and suffering and blood and tears. And that is part of the story of progress. It is something that we have to accept, unfortunately, that progress doesn't happen in a straightforward fashion, but that it will be marked with regression. However, if we take a long-range view, as I'm suggesting we do, we start to see a new narrative emerge. And this is the narrative that I would like to inaugurate about the region, that amid all of the repression, all of the regression on rights, there has been a parallel story of hope, of progress, and of that universal yearning for the realization of fundamental human rights. And unfortunately, it has sometimes taken dramatic sort of reversals in that trend for there to be another progressive moment, an opening where people come and demand forcefully from their leaders that their rights be respected. We saw this in many occasions in historical revolutions, unfinished revolutions, I would call them, because the cumulative effects of those revolutions are felt into the future. And the Arab Spring, if we can call it that for the sake of just sort of theorizing, I know it's been debated, whether we can even call it a spring if it's turned into a winter. But the Arab Spring was not an overnight phenomenon. If you go back, it's part of the sort of snowball effects of many revolutions past and many sort of civil society movements that have since been sort of stifled. However, you cannot fundamentally repress that energy, and it keeps rising to the surface over and over again. And anyone who tells me that that has gone away and just because we can't see it, I will have them know that this is sort of a recurring trend in the way that, as I mentioned, the green movement in Iran is the continuation of an unfinished revolution in 78, 79, which was since sort of co-opted, but is now kind of came back to reassert itself. And then again, about a year over a year ago, when you had a new round of protests, people demanding more forcefully and more courageously for their rights. So the Arab Spring and in sort of the different movements in the public squares around the region, you were able to sort of sense the individual kind of national struggles. But at the same time, there was an overlapping of struggles and a sudden awareness of the common struggle across the region, not just the region, I would say it's part of the sort of international rights movement that has been going on for decades. So it's picked up momentum in cases like that and sort of progressive openings. It has since been quashed, as we all know, but it is bound to come back to the surface in different forms. And that's something we shouldn't ever kind of try to predict. It's going to take on whatever organic form it does. At the same time, you have the regimes across the region taking note of this revolution of rising expectations and they're adapting their policies to the changing times and to these demands because the greater gap there is between the sort of pledges of the regimes and the promises and their actual delivery on these promises, the greater credibility and legitimacy gap ensues and the greater need there is to close that gap, otherwise regimes go the way of, you know, Mubarak and others if they cannot meet these demands from the people from below. So there's a combination of these bottom up forces. So this revolution from below, but also the top down forces that are in a sense now anticipating the public disgruntlement and trying in many cases to preempt it. So we see a host of reforms, sort of controlled reforms, you know, in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere that are providing what I call rights cushions, but this indicates this awareness on the part of the different regimes across the region of their human rights imperative. So you would say why is it even necessary for them to do that? Are they just paying lip service to sort of rights, you know, the rights demands? In reality, they are acknowledging the importance of legitimacy, of the dual sort of soft and hard power and also increasingly the international scrutiny that they're receiving, the membership on the Human Rights Council, the fact that they're having to answer not just to their domestic constituency, but to the international community, the fact that everything is being broadcast online and on television. All of that is pushing governments towards the realization of rights, whether they like it or not, whether they realize it or not, but it's happening again, not in a linear fashion and oftentimes through great difficulty. But my argument is that progress is not just happening in spite of the extent of the regression and repression, but thanks to it. So I see challenge as the opportunity, challenge as opportunity. So think about that a little bit. I will pass on the sort of the mic to my friends and I look forward to engaging with you later in a discussion about this. Thank you. Thank you so much, Avinshanah, for keeping to time. Thank you so much. Thanks. So we'll move on to Mutaz. Good evening and thanks a lot for the organizer and I'm very honored to be here in my place and my home. I spent more than six years here at SOAS and was very insightful in my life. Well, I want to be far in my analysis from my colleague, despite the fact that we receive every day very miserable stories and dramatic stories on the situation and the figures are very worrying when it comes to humanitarian situation, humanitarian conditions in the region, but there are also some reasons to be optimistic on the future and especially on the resistance that we have been seeing and experiencing in the region. But let me begin first by explaining, why this dramatic situation when it comes to human rights, what happened over the past few years that made human rights in this region are systematically under attack. I mean, the first factor which I think is clear to all of us is that the revolutions or if we call it uprising, revolution or Arab Spring has been under attack from counter-revolutionary, I will call it counter-revolutionary, alliances in the region. Regionally, there is, of course, growing dynamics, growing actors, most particularly, I mean, I would say Saudi Arab Emirates and the rules in many countries in the regional interference in domestic politics in Egypt. What happened in July, 2013, can be seen from this framework. Also in Yemen, in Libya, this regional dynamics, polarization between Saudi Arabia and Iran, growing rule of Qatar and Turkey, had implication over the trajectories that have been taken by Arab political regime since 2011. Also international behavior, international actors behavior today in the region, taking example of Egypt, my home country, Egypt is one of the big recipient of arms, weapons, from European government, despite the fact that it's under military dictatorship since 2013, more and more systematic violation of human rights and the crimes have been committed every day, just this month, 15 persons executed following politically motivated trials, unfair trials, and we saw European leaders were in Egypt, taking photos with President Sisi on the margin of the Europe Arab Summit. So this behavior also in Saudi Arabia, the UK support to Saudi Arabia, France military support to Saudi Arabia, which also have been used against civilians in Yemen. So this behavior has been known in the region since long time, before 2011. And today most Western government prefer to have strong men in the region on the assumption that this will protect their borders from illegal migrant, from flow of refugees, and also to gain cooperation on counter-terrorism and so on. But of course, getting more closer to the root causes of terrorism and radicalization are not, of course, to be separate from the poor condition of human rights and socioeconomic condition in the region, but usually Western government have had very short-sighted policies when coming to this region, to the Middle East and North Africa. Another reason also, which is very structural, and I think it can be, it can back to colonial era, there are structural limitation in the state and nation building in many countries in the region, I mean Libya and Yemen, Syria, and that's why following 2011, many of the intractable social complexities came into surface. For years, some dictators managed to contain this contradiction. But following the fall of this dictator or when these countries faced significant internal changes, we saw these complexities came into surface. I think Libya is a great and clear example of that, and Yemen as well. And this actually challenges the idea that strong leader can achieve stability in this, because it's a very fragile stability. Once those leader disappear or they're split in the regime, we saw, I mean, that the situation become very difficult to manage and to control. Another reason also, I mean, for this kind of challenges is sectarian polarization, and which is very structural, also many countries in the region. Polarization along the religion is one factor. Liberal, secularist, I mean, this was one of the factor of the failure of the Egyptian revolution. I mean, the polarization between liberal, leftist and Islamist. Another factor is also tribal polarization in Libya or sectarian polarization in Iraq or Syria or in Yemen as well. This also undermined the political movement toward democracy in this region. But there is ongoing resistance that less covered in international media, because in international media and international debates, we focus on the failure of Arab Spring. We focus on the crackdown on human rights defenders and those people who fight for human rights in the region, who pay a high price today. But there are ongoing resistance, and I will focus on that in my intervention, because being in the region, traveling in the region, working from Tunisia, I closely observe this resistance. One of the major issues that mobilize people today in the region is socioeconomic demand. I think in one year, 2018, we saw in Jordan in June, people talk to the street against austerity measures in Iran. We have seen that 2017, 2018. In Pasra in Iraq, it has some sectarian reason, but also economic reason. Today in Algeria and Sudan, both cannot be also isolated from the socioeconomic conditions in Morocco, in certain region in Morocco. And this socioeconomic conditions also is interlinked with the reduction of oil prices in the region. So it has become very much difficult for some government like Algeria or other countries that depend on Gulf support to subsidize commodities or to pile realities in certain countries. So that's why there are more and more young people who are marginalized and more and more marginalized community try to express their demand. But this is something that mobilize people today. Just one example, to get closer to this struggle, Morocco, there is a movement called a major movement. It's a marginalized region in Morocco. This movement, composed of mainly from marginalized Amazighi ethnic minority, it fight against environmental exploitation and economic exploitation by business owned by the royal family in Morocco. And they organize themselves very well over the past few years, but there is no attention to this fight. And people taken to jail and physically attacked, but they continue and mainly the fighters in this movement are from young people. We cannot overlook the demographic reality in the region, which make it very hard for a political ruler to control their societies because more than 50% of this society are young from young generation and they are marginalized economically and they have a political expectation following 2011 uprising. Another resistance we also witness in the region, the LGBT movement, for example, in the Middle East. And this is very much interconnected with what we can call surge in right demand since 2011, and this is one of the achievement of the Arab Spring that people continue to claim right. LGBT community in Tunis, in Jordan, in Egypt, in Morocco. For the first time in Egypt, I mean, the rainbow flag raised in one of the public event in Cairo. I couldn't imagine that to happen in Egypt. Tunis, the first LGBT association, Shams Association, was established and also another marginalized community like ethnic minorities, Nubians in Egypt now, they are very active in demanding their right. When it comes to gender equality, today, the debate is very active in Tunisia on inheritance, equality in inheritance. And in Muslim countries, these issues are very divided and controversial, but today, even the president of Tunisia sponsored a law that provides inheritance inequality between men and women. So this resistance, why is this resistance ongoing and why it will develop over the coming period? We spoke about the demographic reality, the socioeconomic condition, and also the rule of human rights movement inside and outside the region. And I think the human rights movement was able to show resilience. In a country like Egypt, despite the fact that there is an intense crackdown on human rights defenders, since 2014, there is a distribution of work between activists inside, outside the country, collaboration between domestic worker and international human rights organization to expose and to publish news and figures on crimes that are committed. When CEC visited the United States to meet Trump, his first visit, Washington Post, New York Times just published the figures conveyed by local groups inside Egypt on extrajudicial killing, on forced disappearance, and so on, using also strategic litigation internationally and regionally. And this is very important. We can, I mean, remember the rule of human rights movement in Chile or Brazil under military dictator and houses, movement played a very important role in raising the human rights issues globally and undermining the military regime at that time. But what are the limitations today for human rights activism and can this lead to significant exchange or not? While I'm very optimistic on the long term of this kind of struggle and resistance, there are also some risk and limitations. The first limitation, I think, is the division, societal division that is very intense in many countries today in the region, across religion, across sectarianism and tribal affiliation. This is one of the challenge that somehow obstructs the work of human rights activists. Another limitation is the political, the vacuum or the weakness of the political organizations that can negotiate with repressive regime. I mean, protesters can create noisy, can create some kind of mobilization, but when it comes to negotiation with military repressive regime or with spoilers, usually this is what happened in 2011. The revolution were undermined because there was no political movement to take up the challenge and to negotiate with dictator regime. Another factor also is the regional dynamics and this is something that will continue in the region, Saudi Arabia, Emirates, the rule of regional powers that are able to intervene internally in these countries and are able also to control certain political group. And finally, the security vacuum because, and I think we see that today in Tunis, the transition in Tunis is one positive thing, but at the same time, it doesn't have the capacity in terms of security to control the threat, security threat that are coming from different neighbors in Tunisia. And I think this also putting more and more pressure on democratic transition. I will conclude here and I will be ready to engage with your question. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mota, as also for being within time. So we'll quickly go on to Melek. Thank you very much for joining us this evening and thank you also, Hassan and Mashoud for supporting this event. I mean, I would actually support two panelists, but me, my talk might be a little bit more pessimistic than the others. So as Mashoud told you in the introduction, this is actually based on my research, which looks at two to three uprising countries, Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco. I will focus this evening on Tunisia and Egypt. And I will give you some insights based on the evidence from the semi-structure interviews I conducted during 2017 and 2018 in Tunisia and Istanbul and in London. So popular uprisings did not only change the existing authoritarian regimes, it raised also the hopes that the human rights situation in the North African countries in the main region will improve. So after eight years, we have different cases such as Tunisia, which is labeled mostly as one of the great success stories in the region and Egypt, which turned out to be another authoritarian regime after the coup in 2013. So Tunisia's success is mostly explained by it is homogenous population and also demographics and also strong civil society and stable institutions. And actually when we look at the transitional process, we see that Tunisia actually could make use of the opportunities and establish some very important institutions which are vital for the future for the protection of human rights. When we look at the constitution making process, for instance, we see that very diverse political actors could reach a consensus and put together a constitution which was a compromise between the Islamists and secularists, which was not actually possible in Egypt. And we see also that a transitional justice process took place in Egypt through the Dignity Commission, although it was not really successful because this mandate was not extended by the parliament in Tunisia. But we can say that the process was marked by the constant search by all parties for consensus. When I interviewed Rashid Khan Nushe, he told me the magic formula for the success of Tunisian story is the consensus. We have, I called him, we have this court that in periods of transition, what you need is not a simple majoritarian democracy but a consensus based on democracy where you take everyone with you informing the constitution in shaping the future of the country. And Nahta has given a lot of concessions to await this polarization, including on the issue of Sharia. The mentioning of Sharia in the constitution was one of the things that could have divided our society. That is why we decided to live it out of the constitution. So, however, after eight years, many civil society actors, also the political actors from the oppositional parties expressed their concerns that there is a backlash with regard to human rights in the country. I mean, the country, Tunisia, is facing many challenges. So, security issues, for instance, economic deficit at sports, some very important constitutional institutions and the constitutional court hasn't been established yet. But the strongest concern was actually the return of the old faces, old politicians from the Ben Ali area again to the political city. So, and this was actually expressed by many political actors, for instance, Shafiq Ayad from the TACO, but also many of the civil society actors mentioned this that the period after the 2014 was actually just a struggle to keep the rights, which was actually gained during the first period. So, during the period when the Asafi government was ruling after the 2014, actually many positive steps have been taken, like particularly with regard to human rights. For instance, women's were not allowed to marry a non-Muslim. This was lifted, this law. But these steps were also criticized because these steps were mainly taken when there were debates about reconciliation bill, which was again a really backlash with regard to human rights was regarded. So, because it was giving an amnesty to the officials from Ben Ali area, which were involved in corruption cases, provided they repaid stolen money back. So, actually this bill was defended by the Nida Tunis and Nahtar members as a necessary tool to make the country again work in economic terms, but it damaged the transitional justice process. However, the main gain was, and it was also supported by political actors on the civil society actors, that the key gain during this transitional justice is the huge popularity of human rights. So everybody's speaking about human rights, which was not the case before the uprisings and this is also the same in case of Egypt actually. So when I was interviewing the people from Egypt, I was so frustrated actually. It was a hard case for me, Egypt, to analyze. So, because I may interview the victims of human rights violations. So actually, but they were the ones who gave me hope. So they told me the important thing here is that we are struggling. We are speaking about human rights. Everybody, the evidence about human rights, evidence of human rights is so high in Egypt now it was never the case. Because the violations are so high and affect everybody, in turn, everybody's speaking about their rights. And everybody, if they are even not really brave enough to demand it because the station does not really allow it always, but they are aware of their rights and they are speaking about it. And this is the most important thing in Egypt. But in Egypt, we can say the biggest challenge before the coup was the inexperience of the politicians. With regard to governing actually. I mean, Muslim Brotherhood maybe was good in delivering some services to the Egyptians. But when they were supposed to go in the country, they were inexperienced. And the ex ministers or politicians from Egypt also mentioned this, criticizing themselves that they were actually inexperienced. And many of the failures were actually because of these inexperience. And they were also not really concerned about human rights. So when I interviewed one member of the National Human Rights Council, for instance, he told me he really tried very hard to take the model of Tunisia and to put in process these transitional justice like in Tunisia. But he was told that is a really big issue beyond the abilities of Egypt. So the readiness and willingness to put these institutions to protect human rights was not really in Egypt. And after the coup in 2013, I would say actually we see that the human rights violations are institutes utilized. So the institutions which are supposed to actually protect human rights are the ones which violate human rights. So a report from the UN Committee against Torture in 2017 says actually the prosecutor's judiciary are sporting and enabling the tortures in Egypt. So it is a systemized violations of what we actually now experience in Egypt. It is the, and it's so widespread even when you, I mean in practice, even if you try to report human rights violations, you can be a victim of the regime. So regime is actually just trying to create a fear through violating human rights and to stop this demand for human rights. But as I said, even the victims of human rights have high hopes so that the struggle is still there. And the readiness for human rights is really much higher than pride of human rights. So thank you very much. Thank you so much. I mean, Melek and all the panelists for keeping within time. So we are working, I mean within time. Before we take questions, Hassan, I mean, do you want to say something? It's been very interesting and very thought provoking, but I don't want to abuse my position though. I have enough questions and comments. Okay. But in all humility, I really also want to hear. That's fine, thank you. Okay, definitely. I will also not abuse my position. I will throw the floor open now. Just identify yourself briefly and please ask a question. If you want to intervene, indicate that it's an intervention rather than a question so that I mean you can then summarize what you want to say. But if it's a question, please be brief. So the floor is open now. You might indicate who you want to answer or maybe it could be general and any of the panelists could answer it. Questions? Interventions? Yes. Thank you very much. I mean, that's a very good question. Politicization of human rights. I mean, we discuss this all the time. Who wants to have the first go? Okay. I definitely agree that the instrumentalization of human rights has been very problematic, especially when it's used as a tool for intervention in the region, whether it's sort of liberating missions, operation, Iraqi freedom, importing democracy, those are all against the spirit of human rights. And it also unfortunately provides the regimes in the region with a way to kind of reject human rights on ground of it being about Western imperialism. However, that's the sort of cultural relativism trap I was discussing earlier. It still does not excuse the local regimes from their duties, their responsibilities towards their people. Of course, it's also giving human rights a bad name when it comes in the form of a military intervention. What else? I think it's one of the challenges, but I think this is something we can see even in Western society is how, where are you from political power define your discourse in human rights? In Egypt, you can see the same people, for example, who struggled against Muslim Brotherhood when they were in power for human rights. They are the same people who violated human rights once as they are closer to power and even justified the killing of protesters in Rabaa in 2013. So you can see even in Tunisia, the debate on inheritance, sometimes it is used, it is of course a great goal and personally I support that, but sometimes it's used by certain people to support and advance political agenda without being heartedly defending the rights. So it's something really common in the region, but I think it is also in Western societies you can find it. I just would like to add, for instance, in case of Tunisia, we see actually when Ben Ali come to power, he said he's there because of the human rights violations. So actually, human rights are used also, I mean, I would divide here, separate here, actually internal, maybe, politicization and external politicization. And when we look to the internal politicization, many of the politicians, I mean, in the cases I analyze at least, I use the human rights discourses as a legitimizing tool, actually, even if they didn't mean to protect human rights. As I said, for instance, Ben Ali said I am here just because of the several human rights violations. And we see also during, for instance, scuff ruling. If you just look at the speeches provided by scuff, you will see that they also express that they're interns for protection of human rights, which was actually not in practice the case. So it is mostly actually internally used by the political actors, this politicization, to legitimize their acts or their positions. Well, let me flip the coin. I'm not abusing my position, but I mean, I want to flip the coin. And in relation to politicizing human rights, it's not only on the sides of governments. It's not. I want to pass maybe, if you look at many African countries, I'm not talking Africa, Sub-Saharan African countries. I mean, you'll find out that at one point in time, human rights activists were only acting as revolutionaries against military regimes. They were just using human rights against military regimes. They were not very organized and when the military regimes were toppled, you find that they couldn't deliver anything because they were just using human rights as a tool of regime change. And eventually, I mean, through practices, you find out that the human rights organization in Sub-Saharan Africa, part of West Africa particularly, have really moved on properly now, well organized. And the times when they can work with government to achieve their aims, they know it. The time when they can challenge government to achieve their aims, they know it. They do get the point. So I don't know whether such identification has been realized in many regions in relation to human rights organizations, human rights activists rather than states. Politicization of human rights itself by activists. Do you want to talk to that? Particularly? I totally agree because this is one of the limitations that I raised. Yes, there are now surging demand and human rights demand, but when it comes to politics, when it comes to organization, some of those actors who defend human rights when they are sitting on table for negotiation, they don't deliver or they are not able to convey a unified message to negotiate with the oppressive regime. This happened in Egypt 2011 and it is one of the limitations that meet Tunisian transition today also. So mobilization of protesters, mobilization of society is one thing. But to rule and to be able to deliver is another thing. It's two different issues. Okay, yes. We're trying to put a comment right now. However, I'd just like to comment on that. One thing that I know is that it's common in the three presentations in which optimism is built upon is kind of people who start to recognize that they have certain rights and start reporting some cases and think that we should be able to express their right there. But thinking of the Egyptian context specifically, I see as much as that is right, but a lot of other cases go unforded. And also, not everyone has got the leverage to express themselves. And especially the incident of the LGBT people trying to raise the flag, actually the consequence for this was very harsh and people got imprisoned for this. So it's good to see people reporting and criminalizing their rights, but what happens on the other side are the responses, the policies. Is there a policy change for that? People now are not allowed to protest, to go to the street, to raise any kind of written stuff, express themselves in any way. Many other cases that go un reported or like very harsh responses for those incidents happen. So how does that fit? Like, is it enough to be optimistic just because people are starting to recognize their rights and try to express themselves or do we still need more? Thank you. You know, if we fixate on the daily human rights violations, of course it's a completely bleak picture, but I'm suggesting that we expand our lens a little bit to look at the history, the trajectory and to also recognize that rights progress is not just about the sort of diminishment of those violations, but also about the change that's taking place in the sort of social, cultural fabric. For instance, it's the rich sort of history of judicial activism in Egypt. That's something you can't take away, sort of the activist judges, the legacy of the Supreme Constitutional Court holding the executive to account. Those are things that are also representing a lot of progress in the realm of human rights, but that we don't normally notice because oftentimes we take it for granted and oftentimes they're eclipsed by all of the rights violations. So we have to take all those different pieces together and then we get a new picture of what progress looks like. It may not be, it's not a one size fits all thing, it's not all or nothing. And for certain it's not a sort of Western liberal kind of concept of progress. Just because we don't have fully fledged democracies, functional democracies in the region, doesn't mean that the region has not attained a level of liberal kind of development. So. Yep. After you. Please, no. I mean, because you raised this question of risk and the threat on human rights defender because my work at Frontline is to work with human rights defenders to meet this risk. You know, I've been in this field since 2003. You cannot work in human rights in this region or in any repressive context without having some price. There are price, there are cost, and there are risk. But there are tactics and strategies. Some people may confront the high risk and you know, like those people who raise a rainbow in Egypt or some LGBT activists also in Tunisia who come publicly and they received also death threat and physical violence. But there are also other tactics, you know, and you see it today in Egypt when I talk about the resilience of human rights movement, survival of human rights movement. You work low profile, you try to distribute work between domestic and external factors. You work with, you collaborate with international organization to convey messages. So it depends on how you strategize for your work. But you know, young people, young protesters, grassroots activists, they tend today to take more risk. You see this today in Algeria, in Sudan and in certain region in Egypt also. The constitutional amendment, President Sisi now proposed to rule until 2034. A lot of young people now record two or three minutes on Twitter and social media to oppose the constitutional amendment. President Sisi will not be able to arrest all of those people, or thousands of people, you know. He arrested, of course, some people. But then the more people come, more people appear. So repression also has limits, you know. When repressive regime confronted with huge number of protesters and huge number of activists and wide wave of protests. Thank you. And I just want to say, this is a process. So it is not the end now. So, okay, today we have really several human rights violations in some of the countries like Egypt. But people even, I mean, the Egyptians have these hopes because they just think this is not the end and it will change. For instance, many of the Egyptians working in human rights NGOs based in different countries told me, what are they trying now is actually just to document these human rights violations because they don't have any hope that they will have the support from the international community, which is lacking so far. But they just have the hope the situation will change. When it changed, then they need these documents about human rights violations. One of the ex parliament member told me, for instance, the problem with the Saudi area was that they didn't have these documents ever document human rights violations. And because of this, they couldn't bring this into the justice. So they try now hard to document every single human rights violations and once the station is changed, they hope for justice. So the hope is there because it's a process. Now the station is not good, but people are just working on it to change it. Okay. I'm a master's student in international development at LSE. And I wanted to ask more specifically for expansion on women's rights. I don't know if you touched on this briefly, but for all of the panelists. And I'm especially curious about the case of Egypt where you do have human rights violations, but then also kind of some lip service towards women's rights and kind of what that actually looks like and do we have a reason for optimism about women's rights in Egypt or in the region as a whole? Women's rights, yes. Go ahead, okay. So women's rights, I would say it was so different for me in these three cases I investigated actually. I mean, Tunisia had a more secular legal framework also prior to the uprising. So to discuss some of the rights, even to discuss LGBT rights is much easier in Tunisia than compared to other countries. So we see then in Tunisia these laws, for instance, about marrying a non-Muslim, even they are heavily discussing now the inheritance law. But I don't know if the reason in Egypt was that they were not willing to discuss it, but they have more pressuring issues. So I would say for instance, if I ask people about human rights in Tunisia, they mostly just start to speak about freedom of expression. So they have these luxus. But if I ask Egyptians about human rights, they speak about torture, about arbitrary detentions. So the issues are so different, they didn't have time to speak about human rights. If the transition policies was different, they might speak about it. We don't know, so I can just speculate. But in Tunisia it is really progressed, I would say, with regard to human rights. Maybe briefly also a positive factor also over the past year is the growing rule of women and women human rights defenders in the region. In Saudi Arabia, you see now Mohamed bin Salman, I mean both them in jail because they are effective, there is a campaign that they have convened in Kuwait, in Bahrain, a woman like Sa'aqsh is a leading civil and political activist who was arrested for his sexual harassment in Egypt. In Algeria today in Sudan, look to the rule of women activists in Sudanese protest. But of course the threat that they face are very specific and they are more and more vulnerable and sexual harassment and sexual violence is something used in Egypt also under all regimes. Since 2011 it has been used as a weapon against women activists. The lifting of the driving ban in Saudi Arabia is very significant, not because women finally have the right to drive, but because it will open the floodgates to a whole host of other rights demands and they were sort of delaying that, but they were delaying the inevitable and that was something that was bound to happen and now that women have claimed that right, they are also bound to claim many more and this is also going to the point on people taking more risks and women in particular are taking a lot more risks. That means that this is the end of a culture of impunity and fear. So when fear lifts, then anything is possible and the fear is actually more felt on the part of the regimes than the people and the increasing kind of like aggressive tactics that are used by the regime, the different regimes only attest to the insecurity that they feel vis-a-vis the popular demands. Yes. I think this amount is more doing it to be internationally accepted. Let him do it, it's wonderful and he doesn't have to do it. So it's actually, it shows that even the Saudi Arabia's of the world are having to adjust themselves and adapt to the changing expectations. They could be doing it for a variety of reasons and that's fine and oftentimes it's done for instrumental reasons. However, the sort of spiral model of norm socialization would sort of argue that that is the first step towards the actual internalization of those norms and the bottom line is that women had a hand in that and were it not for the bravery of the people who did risk their lives and livelihoods to kind of challenge those strict laws, those changes may have never taken place. My question also relates to women's rights and it is how can we in the West as part of that transnational feminist movement extend our solidarity to the struggle for women's rights in the region without like well at the same time rejecting orientalist assumptions that deprive these women of agency and sort of reduce them to a homogenous group or identity. I think one positive thing today is that the level of solidarity and support to women human rights defender in Saudi Arabia as an example is growing. We see it in international media, how even British media and I'm very interested in that. Look at the debate today in United Kingdom, France, Germany on military export to Saudi Arabia and how it can be used as leverage to pressure Saudi regime to reduce pressure on human rights activists and women human rights defender. So I think this level of solidarity is needed and I see that human rights defenders themselves are active in Europe to raise these issues. For example, tomorrow, there is a protest in Copenhagen to support human rights defender in Bahrain, including women human rights defender. And this is actually in Copenhagen, it was in Brussels, it was also in London. So there is global solidarity network and I think any kind of solidarity is needed today, especially pressure on parliamentarians in European countries and on business, private business by the way, this is very important and maybe one example to that because recently we published at Frontliner Report on the repression against liberal rights defenders in Egypt, including women, liberal human rights defenders. And we discovered the complicity of a French military, French military industry, a business called Naval Group, the French government to own more than 60% in share in this company. The complicity between this company and the Egyptian military to repress liberal rights defenders in Alexandria. So this is an area, litigation can be a possible way to file case against this company, raising the issue with the media. There are too many things to be done in Europe, especially that this government, they've been on European aid, European military industry and diplomacy to raise their profile like Mohammed bin Salman Saudi Arabia is very caring about his image and so on. I wanted to actually reaffirm what you said Muattaz about the importance of holding our home governments accountable for their complicity and the rights violations that take place in the Middle East region, especially in providing unconditional support, let's say for the Israeli occupation of Palestine, of providing arms assistance to their client states in the region. That is why I'm hopeful about the region because I know we tend to essentialize the problems there. We tend to think that the region is fundamentally inhospitable to freedom and democracy, but no, it's because of all the obstacles that are in the way. So once we remove them, once let's say the West gets out of the way and stops kind of preventing that natural flow towards progress, then actually we will start to see a lot of positive change. Okay. Northern Syria, in terms of whether, I don't see any opportunity for human rights there with the invasion, as it were, Northern Syria and threats and more and yet the West seems to be over-illeged. Yeah, I mean, because in my organization, we work to help, it's a more humanitarian support now to people at risk, to human rights defenders at risk to relocate internally or externally to provide them with emergency support. This is the least that we can do, but I think when it comes to Syria, the problem right now is that the revolution and the uprising is officially failed. In today, many countries are starting to normalize relations with Bashar al-Assad. In the Arab region, they're starting to normalize relations with Bashar, so there is a crisis when it comes to Syria. So much more work needed on policy level. Humanitarian support is important, but when it comes to improving the situation, the overall situation, more advocacy is needed on policy level because I think if the international community agreed on the outcome of the Syrian protest and the revolution and just agreed on the status quo right now, mainly because of the interference of Russia and China, I mean, things will not develop peacefully in the country and it will, you know, there is a permanent state of this order we will see in the Middle East. I don't believe that a new repressive regime in the ways that we know in 60 or 70 will be able to survive in the region anymore. More instability, more ISIS, more recruit for fighters, you know. In Egypt, there is a recent report published by Human Rights First on how Egyptian prisons have become more and more that the recruitment in Egyptian prison has increased because of the torture and because of the poor prison condition in the country. So I think stability is at stake and questionable, you know, by this regime and this order will continue unless there is a change in policies in the region. Let me ask, we have not spoken at all about having, although in one of the presentations, I'm going to talk about cultural relativism which is winning our way now. We have not spoken about actually understanding the region in order to be able to use the understanding of the region to achieve human rights dividends. I mean, what do you think about that in relation to, I mean, in promoting human rights in the minor regions to understand the dynamics of the region itself, you know. Now, we're talking earlier about Tunisia. I mean, there's a lot of cross-regional interventions. Yes, I mean, the bill has been passed by cabinet in relation to equal distribution of inheritance. It's going to parliament now to be voted upon. But you find out that, I mean, for example, Egypt, you find the Azhar scholars are challenging it. And they have a lot of influence in relation to, and other regional voices, strong voices, are challenging that. So what impact would, I mean, does that sort of, I mean, cross-country intervention, I mean, even if it is verbal, relate to understanding the region in order to be able to really, I mean, have positive achievements in human rights work. I will add another question to this. I wonder after what happened in Egypt, if Al-Azhar, I mean, Egypt was a key country in the region and they had a huge impact, it is Al-Azhar. If Al-Azhar had still this position, this power to, you know, have some impact on the other countries in the region with regard to human rights and regional, you know, the religion and human rights. Can I add to that? Okay, many questions. I think the panelists have been very cautious and careful in putting out the limits to exceptionism. That's right. Which is really what affects, has affected a lot of studies, a lot of popular approaches to understanding many facets of life in the region, including human rights. All right. We'll talk about this question today. Having delineated the limits to exceptionism, we cannot deny that specificity of the context is important. And I think this is the point you're making. That's right. We cannot pretend social, political phenomenon operating back you and are devoid of and continuing the end of the context in which they interact with the environment. And I think this is where understanding the specificities rather than the exceptionalities of the region is important. I mean, the point about equality of inheritors is important because you can be sure no matter what progressive laws would be put in print on the table, given the roots, cultural, religious, ideological roots of this old age phenomenon it will take forever for progressive rules to actually manifest themselves in reality, in practice. Because all it takes is within a family if the bigger brother doesn't prove of the latest progressive laws, they will take matters into their hands and divide things according to what they see as religiously. There are many examples, there are many reports of such practices on the ground rather than latest announcements. I think that I'm understanding the specificities and heeding the right balance between the specificity and the generality. This is something that is the challenge for all of us in various states and not just with the least. I mean, if you talk about human rights in Latin America which was at some stage the place where many fejuntas were, that's what the rest of the work, the model, you would have to take into account the specificities in that context. Another point about optimism versus pessimism. Either of these, I think at the end of the day we have to have some metrics for measuring progress or lack of it. Now, if I have understood correctly the prevailing mood on the panel, at least two out of three, possibly two and a half out of three, is they point to the struggles that are ongoing that remind us of the struggle for human rights as being a process rather than a linear event which is absolutely right. But they come very close to actually treating the struggle for progress as the progress itself. The struggle for human rights is not the same thing as attaining it. The struggle against poverty is not the same as eradicating poverty. I say this at the end of the point, I'm not an expert on human rights, but I know a little bit about it, you mentioned the movement, what happened to the green movement? I would love to address that. I'm trying to expand the green movement. How many newspapers were closed after the green movement? What happened to the leaders? It took the regime five seconds to put them on the house arrest. You see a picture of one of them every maybe two months. That's a picture. A movement that brought out an estimated one and a half million into the streets of Tehran June 2009. It's about. Now, of course, it hasn't died. Of course, those conditions and aspirations are very much alike. But look at the mass exodus of journalists. Not because the movement was set back with sheer force on the streets of Tehran. One of the military parts we should not underestimate the impunity with which the counter revolutionaries would make sure they would use no time in countering the struggle for human rights. And one last one, whether you prefer to extend your optimism to the Syrian territory. Definitely. That's where I really stand. I'm not saying that the struggle for Palestine is over. Of course it's not. Of course it's not. It's the deepest longest conflict in the region from last century. But where are the terms of the most basic, the most elementary human rights in that part of the world? Thank you. I'd love to address a few of those points. First of all, this is, again, not to dismiss the people that were made martyrs in the Green Movement and the arrests and all of that. Yes, we accept that. However, the Green Movement may have faded, but I see the reward of that sort of struggle being, let's say, the fact that the reformists came into power. We would not have had a two-term reformist president in Iran and a majority reformist parliament were it not for the struggle of the people. They came and they're in power because of that movement. So this is an example of a tangible reward for the struggle, or the lifting of the driving ban. All of these are actual rewards. So let's not forget those. Those are clear progress being made. Of course, they're also not perfect and we are still fighting for more. But it's a daily struggle and it's a daily sort of going back and forth. The other point was, what was the other question? The Palestine. This is probably the most central question in the region. The Palestinian solidarity movement, unfortunately the regimes across the region have abandoned that. They still pay lip service to it occasionally, but there's increasing collusion with Israel following the lead of the Western Israel First Policy and I think that is the greatest impediment to the end of the Palestinian occupation. However, there are other ways around it. I'm personally involved through my consultancy and I'll take this opportunity to share with you a new campaign that I'm launching, which is to urge the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to officially open the investigation into Israeli war crimes and Gaza. This is an example of where the peace process is dead, we can turn to international institutions and the rule of law to provide some form of justice even if it's to leave behind a record of what happened. I think that that's the only hope forward. Of course, there's the BDS movement and many other sort of peace movements that are supporting the Palestinian cause. However, it's the complicity of local governments who have let down the Palestinian brethren. It is the our failure in the West to sort of push that cause in our parliaments right here in the UK the kind of responsibility, historical responsibility that the UK has through sort of the Balfour legacy and what they left behind in that part of the world. I mean, all of those are the roots of the problem and I also don't feel that they are so much religious or cultural and that is the sort of danger of nationalizing that they're political and historically created conflicts and they can easily be resolved not overnight but with that sort of careful optimism. Thank you. Okay, let me take one. You want to comment on that? Go on. A few words on the issue of political or relativism and religion. Just there is a recent in President Sisi and Sharma Sheikh in the Europe Arab Summit talking on relativism, defending relativism and attacking Europeans saying you are not going to teach us humanity and so on but at the same time the President of Tunisia was in Human Rights Council in Geneva defending equality inheritance from within the religion. From within the religion. Because the report that was published by Bushra and this committee formed by President Sisi himself if you read the report this is a long document it's on personal liberty and it is a clear example of how scholars and activists use religion to defend progressive position on women on inheritance equality on personal freedom and using progressive interpretation of Islam. Salah al-Dina Gorshi is a known thinker Islamic thinker and scholar who was part of this committee and he also had insight to the report so you know it's part of the struggle today also. Yeah exactly I actually want to say these that in Tunisia for instance also in Morocco they try actually to start a debate among the theologians and you know religious leaders about inheritance law but I agree with you that it is the legal reforms wanting and the practice is another thing when I give you again the example from Tunisia for instance this law about being allowed to marry a non-muslim in practice it's still not possible you go there and you come back with empty hands and inheritance law is also supported by the women who define themselves as feminist and secularist when I for instance interview from Nida Tunis she told me for her the main challenge is actually to address these secularist and feminist women because they say that is the social reality of country and if you touch this you know the system will collapse so even non-religious people are supporting the system so it is the specificity of the country and the realities are much more different than legal reforms and progress measuring I agree also that attaining the human rights is something different than you know this struggle at least what I was saying is I mean these institutional reforms are important maybe we can measure some you know some of the human rights protection using these establishment of institutions or other policies against human rights but I just want to point actually these hope and struggle not it is only you know a rosary picture with you know struggling but there are no human rights in case of Egypt I am more pessimistic than other countries for instance because in Tunisia you see the struggles and the outcome of it too but in Egypt now for now it is an endless struggle actually you don't know where it is going and how it is going in 2 or 3 years thank you we take one more question and we have only 5 minutes more yes or is the migrant one thank you you take it in rounds but also use it as an opportunity to round up we all I mean I have personally witnessed a lot of progress actually being made on that front specifically because of the international bad press and scrutiny that some Gulf states for instance were getting because of the poor treatment of the laborers and they have since put into place wage protection schemes that are housing I know that all seems insignificant but it is actually tremendous because they also didn't need to do that but they recognize the importance of at least appearing to be law abiding and respecting international cause of conduct was that sort of your question well I saw it with my own eyes where I was able to tour the units where the laborers work so rather than them being sardined into a room they have a better kind of facilities I mean that is I would say an improvement over the general worker conditions internationally so it is not again to act as an apologist for those kinds of ill practices but it is to give credit where credit is due thank you I think things can develop very quickly in the region I think even Egypt while the situation now is very gloomy and very hard for activists to work but anything can happen because of the fragility of socioeconomic situation you know it is 100 million population it is not easy really to maintain and stabilize a repressive regime in this complex demographic young society in 2010 we didn't expect at all what happened in 2011 and in 2012 I didn't expect also what happened in 2013 in Egypt and today we see what is happening in Algeria and Sudan and it also was beyond any expectation so it is very hard to predict but we have dynamics that is ongoing and rapidly changing and the struggle for human rights and democracy is very long in many countries it was long in Europe it was long in Latin America it's up and down and the revolution is not symbol you know and counter revolutionary is not the end also thank you the last panel I concluded with a sentence from the ex-president of Tunisia and I would like to make the same because he said we are still struggling and we lost lots of battles but we will win the war so thank you so much there is another event coming up so we just need to round up thank you so much for everyone coming and we hope you have enjoyed this event please let's give the panelists a round of applause thank you thank you thank you thank you very much thank you