"The last spark of life in the initiatives was quashed once and for all with the arrival of a new US administration."
Yet another Which-Side-Is-Obama-On Alert. "Arab countries fail on human rights--report," by Samer al-Atrush for Agence France-Presse, December 9 (thanks to Pamela):
CAIRO, Egypt -- Human rights deteriorated across the Arab world in 2009 with torture widely practiced in several countries, an Arab watchdog said in a report released on Tuesday.The report by the independent Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies surveyed 12 countries and said that most of them repressed human rights activists, press freedoms, and discriminated against religious minorities.
The state of human rights in the 12 countries--Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen--"has worsened compared to 2008," the report said.
"Arab governments remained wedded to a broad array of repressive laws that undermine basic liberties," compared to the previous year, said the report, "Bastion of Impunity, Mirage of Reform."...
"Egypt continued to top the list of countries in which torture is routinely and systematically practiced," it said, adding that dozens had died in the country of torture or excessive force by police.
The report also found torture was "routine" in Bahrain, "rampant" in Tunisia, and practiced in Saudi Arabia against terrorism suspects.
Human rights advocates faced harassment in several Arab countries, with Syria, which has jailed dozens of democracy activists, holding the "worst record in this regard."
Religious and ethnic minorities also continued to suffer discrimination in several Arab countries, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the report said.
"Despite the Saudi regime's attempt to appear to champion religious tolerance and interfaith dialogue in international forums, in practice the national religious police continue to exhibit violent behavior," it said.
Egypt, where roughly 10 percent of the 80-million-strong population are Coptic Christians who frequently complain of discrimination, "is increasingly acquiring the features of a religious state," it added.
The report also said that US policies were "wholly inimical to reform and human rights in the region," and accused President Barak Obama's administration of abandoning support for reform initiatives in the Arab world.
"The last spark of life in the initiatives was quashed once and for all with the arrival of a new US administration," it said....
The rights group's representative in Geneva, Jeremie Smith, warned at a press conference that Arab countries had exported attempts to undermine accountability to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
"Arab governments have largely taken strategies that they have perfected at a national level to avoid accountability, and they have exported them to the United Nations system," he said.
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Why has Buraq Hussein abandoned the reforms? Remember, his sharia-loving, Fetullah-Gülen-loving, head-tent-wearing mahoundian adviser, Dalia Mogahed, has the job of "telling Hussein what it is that mahoundians want."
And what do mahoundians want exactly? More jizya from the infidel West, more sharia, more minarets (but NOT from the Swiss, hahahahahahaha!), more misogyny, more impunity when they commit crimes against the kufr, no criticism when they commit genocide (since, according to Turkish PM Recep Erdogarab, a "troo beeleevare™" cannot commit genocide), more mahound-worshipping, more respect for their barbaric and primitive practices, more child-brides, more action from the UN (which stands for "The United Arabs and Arab Sandal Lickers") against Israel, more dhimmitude from those from whom they expect their own livelihoods to come from (since mahoundianism cannot generate any real economic activity from hard work; which, though a virtue in Western epistemology, is something to be avoided at all costs from a mahoundian perspective), and you name it... Mogahed has Hussein's complete attention, and he's listening...