Interviews with Bahey El Din Hassan

I think the main contribution of the human rights groups in Egypt in this critical moment for what´s called the revolution is to help more to consolidate the human rights component of this transition. Because what we witness that the main trend is a belief that just by having an election may be less worse than it was under [Former Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak. So we would have a better country for life, for human rights and democracy.

As history keeps telling us that democracy was about respecting human rights. It is not enough. I guess that the human rights groups should work more hard on the human rights component, on also what we mean by even democratic system, demand in particular the democratic system, it is not just a mechanism. It is also values. It is democratic structures. But not just celebrating the mechanism, whatever is a component, whatever is a value. And if we keep anti-democratic values with democratic mechanisms, this would lead to nothing.

I guess also that the human rights groups should pay more attention to every new proposal coming from the government, coming from the political parties concerning the transition. There is another job. I am not sure that it is exclusively human rights work. I notice that we have some sort of political vacuum in Egypt. We have the SCAF [Supreme Council of Armed Forces] at the top of the power. We have a very paralyzed government without any serious power, helpless. We have political parties, but without having a consensus on a future agenda for Egypt.

So I guess that this, civil society in general and at the heart — civil society of human rights — should work closely with new political actors to build up or to occupy such a political vacuum and to develop day by day an influential voice on the political process of transition in Egypt.

Bahey El Din Hassan is an Egyptian human rights activist who has worked tirelessly to promote human rights culture in his native Egypt and throughout the Arab world.

Prior to the Egyptian revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak’s government, Hassan, a professional journalist, was an ardent advocate for freedom of the press. Through this activism, he became more interested in the importance of educating others on human rights. In 1983, he joined the Arab Organization for Human Rights and two years later helped establish an offshoot group called the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR). Over the years, the Egyptian government cracked down on EOHR’s work, arresting and torturing several of the organization’s members and stripping its status as a legally registered entity. Despite the threat of violence or arrest, Hassan and others helped EOHR to endure and continued to strengthen Egypt’s human rights movement.

In 1993, Hassan co-founded the Cairo Institute for Human Rights (CIHRS), an independent NGO that promotes human rights and democracy in the Arab region. Today, Hassan serves as the Director of CIHRS. Through these various organizations, Hassan has played a role in educating a new generation of young Egyptians on the importance of embracing a universal code of human rights that encourages freedom and dignity for all people.

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, Hassan continues his efforts to strengthen human rights education in Egypt and the greater Arab world. Hassan argues that the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime was only the beginning, and that Egyptians must cultivate a democratic tradition, bolstered by a robust civil society, that respects human rights in order to be successful. As a journalist, lecturer, and author, Hassan educates audiences in the Middle East and North Africa on human rights, democratic transformation in the Arab world, and the challenges facing human rights defenders throughout the region.