NGOs Call Mubarak to Account for Abuses
By Eli Clifton
"WASHINGTON, Aug 17 (IPS) - Egyptian President Mohammad Hosni Mubarak is visiting Washington this week and will meet with U.S. President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Jewish American groups.
But Egyptian Americans are using Mubarak's visit as an occasion to call attention to Mubarak's human rights abuses and to pressure the Obama administration to keep its commitment to supporting human rights and democracy throughout the world.
On Monday, a coalition of Egyptian American groups, including the Coptic Assembly of America, Voices for Democratic Egypt, the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies and the International Qur'anic Center, issued statements regarding the Egyptian president's abuses of power and failure to support democracy and human rights in Egypt.....
''Mubarak operates like a monarch with an ability to act on whims and change the constitution when he wants,'' Amnesty International's advocacy director for the Middle East Zahir Janmohamed told IPS. ''Historically the U.S. looks away when he commits these abuses.....
As one of Washington's most important strategic allies in the Middle East the Obama administration will face the tough choice of choosing between appeasing its strategic ally for political expediency or emphasising the principles which Obama outlined in his Cairo speech earlier this year."
"WASHINGTON, Aug 17 (IPS) - Egyptian President Mohammad Hosni Mubarak is visiting Washington this week and will meet with U.S. President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Jewish American groups.
But Egyptian Americans are using Mubarak's visit as an occasion to call attention to Mubarak's human rights abuses and to pressure the Obama administration to keep its commitment to supporting human rights and democracy throughout the world.
On Monday, a coalition of Egyptian American groups, including the Coptic Assembly of America, Voices for Democratic Egypt, the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies and the International Qur'anic Center, issued statements regarding the Egyptian president's abuses of power and failure to support democracy and human rights in Egypt.....
''Mubarak operates like a monarch with an ability to act on whims and change the constitution when he wants,'' Amnesty International's advocacy director for the Middle East Zahir Janmohamed told IPS. ''Historically the U.S. looks away when he commits these abuses.....
As one of Washington's most important strategic allies in the Middle East the Obama administration will face the tough choice of choosing between appeasing its strategic ally for political expediency or emphasising the principles which Obama outlined in his Cairo speech earlier this year."
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