CAIRO: Botrous Botrous Ghali, president of the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), held a press conference Tuesday to discuss the human rights situation in Egypt at the Council’s headquarters in the National Democratic Party’s Tahrir building.
“The council is only seven years old. It is just like a seven-year-old child who has a long way to go before it fully develops and achieves the expected success, Ghali told reporters.
Both the council and NGOs are merely “consultants that have the power to negotiate, address issues, and maybe convince authorities, but do not enjoy any executive authority over public matters, he continued.
According to Ghali, the NCHR faces similar limitations as other countries human rights organizations.
However, Ghali explicitly told Daily News Egypt that the council is “independent of the government, and that throughout his five years as council president has not changed his opinion on any matter for the sake of a governmental official.
“I did not even do it when I was the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ghali said laughing, “where I was fired, or let’s say not reelected, when I refused to change my stance [to humor] one entity.
Ghali also stressed the importance of helping to resolve the human rights problems of other countries, like Sudan, which would allow them to help us with our own human rights issues.
On the international front, Ghali stated that it is hard to achieve “external democracy when only one country, namely the US, has the power to control the rest of the world.
Ghali believes that in 10 to 15 years the US will be led by a president who will ask for external democracy as did Roosevelt when the UN was established.
He also asked for increased integration with khawagas (a colloquial reference to foreigners) as most Egyptians tend to feel that foreigners are superior to locals in all fields.
Ghali said that “we mustn’t be afraid of foreigners and must coordinate with them so that we would open up to the world.
As for Egypt’s human rights status, Ghali said that, being a developing country, Egypt is expected to give more attention to its economic development than on progress in its human rights record but stated that the state of human rights has improved.
The meeting was preceded by a year rife with torture, police abuse, and journalist supression.
