Conference On Human Rights And

Conference on Human Rights and the Environment

A conference on Human Rights and the Environment was held in Kut on Wednesday. (al-Sharq al-Awsat). Here is where I think the positive should be underlined in Iraq. My teacher, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, went to jail in Egypt for running a human rights organization. And Egypt is one of the less repressive governments in the Arab world. Here are Iraqis meeting in Kut of all places, founding an organization dedicated to overcoming the ordeal of the past 30 years. It is also interesting that they include the environment in their purview. Significan Green movements are rare in the Arab world, though a few exist. While I haven’t been encouraged by the American handling of the post-war period, I have been encouraged by the way Iraqis are stepping forward to remake their society.