The right of individuals to come together and form associations – political parties, social and cultural associations, human rights organisations, trade unions, charitable welfare associations and the like – was clearly established in international law some 60 years ago when the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December 1948. Article 20 of that Declaration – the UDHR – states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.”
Several south and east Mediterranean states – Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey – participated in that historic General Assembly debate and all were among the 48 states that voted to adopt the UDHR. The Charter was overwhelmingly approved: only six states abstained and no state registered a negative vote. Subsequently, all 11 south and east Mediterranean states covered by this report became party to the two main international human rights treaties that followed the UDHR, the International Covenant on Civil and Political and Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Despite this auspicious start, 60 years on, the rights and principles enshrined in the UDHR – including the right to freedom of association – are inadequately respected in practice, including by the states of the south and east Mediterranean which are the subject of this report. In addition, for the most part, these states have yet to incorporate their obligations under international human rights law into their national legislation, and thereby make these obligations enforceable by their national courts.
As the country chapters that follow plainly show, governments in these countries continue to use all manner of legal and other obstacles to impede the universal rights to freedom of association and the associated rights to freedom of expression and assembly.
Through these means they deny their critics, including human rights defenders and organisations, the means to challenge them or their policies and to press for legal reform, and they severely constrain media freedom and reporting, as well as the development of robust civil societies. In most countries, laws have been created or are applied so as to obstruct freedom of association; in some, state authorities frequently resort to illegal means, including violence, to deny the right of association to citizens or others within their jurisdiction. In short, six decades after the adoption of the UDHR, governments continue to pay little more than lip service to their
obligations to promote and respect freedom of association.
In the year under review here – 2007/2008 – there were few signs of positive change. On the contrary, several governments moved to further tighten restrictions on the formation of associations, notably those seen as likely to criticise state policies and repression, and to assert greater, more intrusive control over those that already exist, and to threaten their very continuance.
At the same time, governments across the south and east Mediterranean region continued to clamp down on expression and dissent. Using vague and broadly-framed insult laws or specious “national security” grounds, they prosecuted journalists, bloggers, human rights defenders and others who spoke up for rights and justice. They banned or forcibly dispersed peaceful protests, and they allowed all-powerful security forces to harass, arrest and detain critics and, sometimes, to torture or otherwise ill-treat them with impunity.