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Arab activists specific warning over Biden’s democracy summit
MEE workers
Thu, 12/09/2021 – 16:04
US President Joe Biden on Thursday kicked off a digital convention on democracy with greater than 100 international locations, geared toward addressing probably the most urgent points going through democratic actions around the globe.
In accordance with the State Division, the two-day summit will give attention to defending towards authoritarianism, preventing corruption, and selling human rights.
It comes amid the Biden administration’s objective of making a bulwark towards Russia and China, and likewise because the US itself was listed for the primary time final month as a “backsliding” democracy by the Stockholm-based Worldwide Institute for Democracy and Electoral Help.
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A community of Arab pro-democracy activists have expressed help for the summit but in addition issued warning, noting that Washington’s continued help for authoritarian regimes within the Center East is at full odds with its targets.
After discussing a sequence of issues going through democracy within the area at a separate summit final week, titled Democracy First within the Arab World, the advocates mentioned the Biden administration must help democracy by partaking with civil society and opposition teams reasonably than authoritarian leaders.
“We worth President Joe Biden’s effort to defend democracy on this planet, and we want the summit each success,” Moncef Marzouki, the previous interim president of Tunisia, mentioned throughout a press convention on Tuesday.
“All that we name upon western international locations generally and the USA, particularly, is to cease supporting authoritarian regimes or forestall our peoples from exercising their minimal rights to democracy,” mentioned Marzouki, who attended final week’s Arab summit.
“With its help for international locations like Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, or Saudi Arabia, it promotes the unfold of the mannequin of governance that blends liberalism and dictatorship.”
Assist of non-democratic states
The Arab Spring of 2011 had introduced a wave of democratic revolutions throughout the Center East, toppling quite a few longtime leaders, together with Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Ten years later, nevertheless, little is left of those actions. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi staged a navy coup in 2013 and eliminated the federal government of Mohamed Morsi, the primary democratically elected president within the nation’s historical past.
In July, Tunisian President Kais Saied froze the nation’s parliament and seized wide-ranging powers. And in October, Sudanese Basic Abdel Fattah al-Burhan declared a state of emergency and ousted the federal government in a coup that upended a two-year transition to civilian rule and sparked worldwide condemnation.
The absence of democracy within the area was mirrored on the US summit, with solely two international locations from the Center East being invited: Israel and Iraq.
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Tawakkol Karman, a Yemeni activist, journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, mentioned that the dearth of invites to international locations within the Center East exhibits that the US understands these international locations will not be democratic states.
“The truth that just one Arab state was invited affirms the truth that the US clearly considers the remaining Arab regimes starting from autocracy to dictatorship,” she mentioned throughout the press convention.
Nonetheless, the US continues to help quite a few non-democratic states within the area, together with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, offering them with tons of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} value of weapons offers.
Since being elected to workplace earlier this 12 months, Biden has continued with a $23bn weapons sale to the UAE, accepted a $200m sale to Egypt, and most not too long ago accepted a $650m sale of air-to-air missiles to Saudi Arabia.
Matthew Hoh, a senior fellow on the Heart for Worldwide Coverage, beforehand noted that whereas the US has positioned sanctions on 30 p.c of the world’s autocrats, it supplies and sells weapons to the opposite 70 p.c.
‘Work with civil society’
Abdullah Alaoudh, the Gulf director at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), mentioned the White Home ought to strengthen relations with civil society teams reasonably than supporting tyrannical governments.
“For a really very long time, the world has tolerated dictators to be able to obtain what some see as stability,” mentioned Alaoudh, who additionally serves as the final secretary of the Nationwide Meeting Get together (NAAS), a Saudi political get together rooted in democratic ideas looking for to determine primary rights for Saudi society.
“Nonetheless, authoritarian rogue figures equivalent to [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman], Sisi and different dictators within the Arab world have confirmed to be nice sources of instability at dwelling and overseas.
“It’s the curiosity of each Saudi Arabia and the worldwide group to help well-liked efforts and work with civil society teams and activists to attain a steady democratic system that saves the nation from imminent implosion from inside as a result of the results shall be devastating for all.”
In the meantime, Karman, the Nobel peace laureate, mentioned Arab residents “have each proper to reside free, similar to the Individuals, the Europeans and lots of peoples of the world who reside as free residents underneath democratic programs”.
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