Yara Sallam believes in standing up for human rights. So when a delegation from the UN came to visit her in El-Qanater Prison in Egypt, where she is currently serving a 2-year sentence for protesting the anti-protest law, she and fellow activist Sanaa Seif told them "don't come here to talk to us (the imprisoned human rights workers) unless you are going to investigate all the women who are held here in the prison." Scott Long, a visiting human rights activist who knew Yara personally, says of her that "She's a genuine human rights defender. She believes in a responsibility to speak out for everybody who is suffering human rights violations." She spoke out, taking the risk of getting arrested, to send a message about human rights and women's rights. And the government sent a very chilling message back.
Yet exactly 2 days after Yara and Sanaa were arrested, John Kerry held a press conference with his Egyptian counterpart and promised 10 Apache helicopters and $575 million in military aid. These had been held up when the military government first started cracking down on protesters, but fear of ISIS trumped human rights. What a victory for them.
We can do better than this. Progressives need to be strong, fearless supporters of human rights for all people, everywhere.
Protecting human rights includes stopping ISIS. ISIS is a horrific, murderous organization. It is a threat to the West, and a much larger and more immediate threat to freethinking people in the Middle East. It operates by classic fear and violence, murdering anyone who voices opposition.
The Egyptian government under al-Sisi, however, also operates by fear. Scott reports that current-day Egypt is 'very much a police state...the streets are not safe for anyone who looks different or who dissents from the government.' And this creates a cycle of repression and radicalization. The repression leads to young men looking for a way to resist, which sometimes they look for in Islamist radicalization. And that radicalization becomes an excuse for further repression.
Breaking the cycle, fighting the battle against authoritarian repression and violence, is obviously not easy. The only way to be successful long term is to be both strong and principled, with the highest principle being support for individual freedom and rights. The battle is not between a particular organization and another, or between a particular country and another; the basic battle is between authoritarianism and freedom. This is something progressives and conservatives should actually be able to agree on, for those who honestly care about the principle of human freedom and dignity.
If such agreement were to happen, in a practical way, that means looking for the right time to apply leverage - and right now may be a good time. Long explained that over the last few years, the US has felt it didn't have a good bargaining position with Egypt, because if we didn't give them money Putin would, and anyway the Saudis were funding Sisi's regime. But with the drop in oil prices, the Saudis have less money, and Putin has his own problems. So if the US wants to send a message in support of human rights, now is a good time.
In the meantime, what can one person do? Amplifying the work of brave front line human rights workers is at least a step. Yara Sallam believes that "change starts with individuals who gather other individuals around them and slowly become the kernel of a movement." She was trying, is trying, to build a human rights movement so that individual women speaking out for human rights would not be alone. Let us do the same thing, and speak out so that she and and other activists facing huge risks know they are not working alone.
What you can do:
---------------
Yara's trial is over, but Azza Soliman is about to be sentenced for testifying about the protest. Letters may help her : http://www.wluml.org/...
Sources:
--------
3/17/15 Interview with Scott Long
http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/...
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/...
Women Living Under Muslim Laws: http://www.wluml.org/
Follow-up suggestions:
----------------------
- ask your congressperson/senator what their position is on human rights. Tell them making human rights a top priority is the only long term solution to foriegn crises. Follow current issues at http://www.humanrights.gov/
- If you send letters ask asked on this site
post here, on facebook, or somewhere what you've done, to encourage other activists.