Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
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Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
9 Rustom St. Garden City
P.O. Box 117 (Maglis El-shaab)
Cairo, Egypt
Tel: +202-7945341 / 7951112
Fax: +202 7921913
Email: info@cihrs.org
Website: http://www.cihrs.org
Contacts: Bahey El din Hassan, Director; Moataz Elfegiery, Programs Director, moataz@cihrs.org
Description
The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) is an independent regional non-governmental organization founded in 1994. It aims at promoting respect for principles of human rights and democracy, analyzing the difficulties facing the application of International Human Rights Law and disseminating Human Rights culture in the Arab Region. CIHRS enjoys consultative status with the United Nations ECOSOC, and observer status at the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR, see separate profile). CIHRS is also a member of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) and the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX).
CIHRS is a well established and experienced regional NGO, whose main objective is to make international human rights standards visible in the Arab region. This objective is being achieved through raising the public awareness of human rights debate, disseminating human rights values and studying the political, cultural, legal and social challenges and obstacles of the applicability of international human rights law in the Arab courtiers.
CIHRS works in four thematic areas:
Democratization: The CIHRS aims at enhancing the capacity of Arab societies to achieve democratization. To accomplish this goal CIHRS conducts detailed analyses and studies on the problems of managing the process of democratization. These studies focus on the appropriate strategies and priorities for legal and political reform in the Arab world, including the improvement and enhancement of the following areas: freedom of association, freedom of expression, media freedoms, judicial independence, free and fair elections and women’s rights. In addition, CIHRS utilizes relevant democratization experiences form around the world with a comparative analysis framework in order to learn about and promote the democratization processes in the Arab Region.
Human Rights Education: CIHRS also endeavors to promote human rights education, and develop ways and methods to disseminate the universal values of human rights. To achieve these aims CIHRS campaigns for the integration of human rights values and principles into academic curricula, and by conducting training courses and workshops for various sectors of society, with a special emphasis on youth. These courses are designed to provide participants with a basic knowledge of human rights, as well as skills concerning their promotion and use, including capacities building for human rights defenders.
Conflicts and Human Rights: CIHRS places special emphasis on conflict-related issues, including the protection and application of international humanitarian law, the application of human rights in conflict resolution, the relation of human rights to terrorism/counter-terrorism, and transitional justice.
Arab Culture and Human Rights: By examining specific cultural issues as they relate to the universal principles of human rights, CIHRS attempts to find and promote creative approaches to solve potential and perceived incongruities between the two. CIHRS strives to perform this task in a way that neither sacrifices the universality of human rights nor denies the existence of particular cultural norms and attitudes in the region.
CIHRS works by developing and proposing policies, including legislative and constitutional alternatives conducive to the improvement of the human rights situation in the Arab region and promoting them among different stake holders. It also conducts educational and capacity-building courses in the field of democracy and human rights.
In terms of knowledge sharing, CIHRS disseminates information and raises awareness of human rights values and issues through reports, theoretical and field studies, analyses, periodicals and different human rights publications. The Institute also engages in dialogue with different political, civil and human rights actors over issues of democratization and human rights. Different international, regional and national mechanisms are harnessed towards raise human rights issues in the Arab region.
Track Record
In its 14 year history CIHRS has been very active in developing methodologies and techniques of human rights education. The organization mainly focused on youth and human rights defenders. These educational and capacity building activities considered are as source of recruitment for the human rights movement. CIHRS was the first organization to provide support to human rights movements in Syria, Sudan and Gulf region.
CIHRS has a strong track record in developing and supporting research on human rights issues. It has published more than 200 titles CIHRS was established.
The organization has undertaken regional and local advocacy on human rights policies in the region in various fields, among them democratic reform, regional protection of human rights, the applicability of human rights in conflict zones (Sudan-Palestine), media freedom, judiciary independence, freedom of association, electoral reform, freedom of expression, human rights education, religions and human rights, Islamic movements and human rights, and terrorism and human rights.
CIHRS has contributed strategically to the international and Arab human rights movement’s agenda through its active role in the international human rights networks. The organization is a founder for the Euro Mediterranean human rights network, and maintains has a strategic relationship with the International Federation for Human Rights and other prominent international NGOs such as Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First and Amnesty International.
CIHRS was the leading Arab NGO to highlight Sudan's human rights situation and Darfur's crisis. The Institute was founder of the African Consortium for Darfur, and took the lead in coordinating the Arab position.
In the 1990s CIHRS, in cooperation with other international and regional partners, initiated and organized several international events that were considered a turning point for the human rights movement in the region. The most important of these was the conference that tackled the strategy of the human rights movement in the Arab World (Casablanca 1999). CIHRS has taken part in a wide range of regional activities to lobby Arab governments and the Arab league for deeper political reforms, as well as combat terrorism.
CIHRS has also served as a catalyst of civil society networking at the regional level, holding lobbying forums parallel to the 2004 Arab Summit in Beirut. This forum resulted in the "Second Independence", which is considered to embody Arab civil society’s vision of political reform in the Arab world.
Challenges
CIHRS faces three main challenges: The first is the legal restrictions on NGOs in Egypt. The association law in Egypt imposes tough restrictions on the freedoms and independence of NGOs. CIHRS is not registered according to the association law, and instead operates under civil law as non profit company. It is also registered in France. Its application to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2000 to request accreditation as a regional organization has not yet received a response.
A second challenge is the sustainability of funding. Since most of CIHRS’s funding is project-based funding, it is faced with the situation of having to sustain flexible funding that can be used in a changeable political environment. A lack of institutional support to build CIHRS’s technical capacity and develop its human resources hampers the organization’s work considerably. Its annual budget has grown from nearly $500,000 in 2003 to US$ 875,000 in 2006. The Institute is supported by the Open Society Institute, Ford Foundation, European Commission, Irish Aid, United States Institute of Peace, the Save Darfur Coalition, and Heinrich Boll Stiftung, among others.
A third challenge is recruitment. The Human Rights field is relatively new in Egypt as well as in the Arab Region. As such, The Institute often times faces difficulties in recruiting suitably qualified staffers. Compared to inter-governmental organizations, it is unable to offer the kinds of salaries that can attract high qualified people.
Opportunities
Private foundations can help strengthen CIHRS by providing project support so as to enable CIHRS to advocate for effective utilization of international and regional human rights mechanisms; institutional funding to bolster the Institute’s technological and technical capabilities (e.g. IT, human resources development, web site development and maintenance, training and translation); flexible funding that can enable CIHRS to respond to the fast-moving developments in the region; and long-term program support to ensure sustainability.
