NGOs detail threats to civil society at Casablanca Meeting

Regimes across the Middle East spout the rhetoric of democracy and reform while stifling civil society, using the pretext of anti-terrorism to curtail independent political activity. This was the message emerging from contributions by democratic and civil society activists – including several NED grantees – to a recent discussion in Casablanca, Morocco.

The meeting was organized by the World Movement for Democracy to get comments from activists on a draft report co-authored by the WMD secretariat and the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. The report identifies five categories of legal barriers – to entry, operational activity, speech and advocacy, international contact and resources – which constrain the activity of non-governmental organizations.

The report, Defending Civil Society, will address the disturbing increase and intensification of various regimes' efforts to frustrate the spread of democracy by impeding democracy assistance efforts internationally and constraining civil society domestically. It is envisaged that the report will be endorsed by an Eminent Persons Group which so far comprises His Holiness the Dalai Lama, former Czech President Vaclav Havel, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell, Egyptian dissident Saad Eddin Ibrahim and former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Outlining the international context to the regional constraints, ICNL president Doug Rutzen noted the criminalization of dissent and extra-legal harassment of NGOs in many parts of the world. He applauded the participation of civil society in elaborating international principles governing state-civil society relations, including the right to associate and to receive international assistance, noting that such involvement would give such norms greater legitimacy than if they were simply promulgated from above.

While there is much variation between relatively liberal states like Morocco and repressive regimes like the Saudi monarchy, the political space for NGOs is shrinking across the region. As Arab NGOs have become more assertive, regimes have mastered the art of developing supposedly administrative but effectively punitive obstacles to NGOs, exploiting legal and regulatory frameworks to undermine civil society.

In the face of a harsh new State Security Act, the absence of an independent judiciary and "excessive force" against civil society groups, Bahrain's NGOs are exercising "self-censorship", said one leading Gulf activist. The Bahrain Center for Human Rights was closed in 2004, effectively exiled and its members beaten upon their return. The government is suppressing civil society groups while promoting the proliferation of government-organized NGOs or GONGOs purportedly working on democracy and human rights.

The region's regimes have mastered the art of forming GONGOs, creating ersatz associations in order to stifle genuine ones, said a Maghreb academic. Governments deploy a perverted form of democratic discourse to enact decisions that have nothing to do with rule of law.

Saudi Arabia, arguably the region's most repressive state, imposes severe barriers to entry. Without laws permitting independent associations, NGOs only exist on condition of royal patronage, stunting civil society. When Crown Prince Abdullah called for "self-reform and the promotion of political participation" in January 2003, some 104 Saudi citizens responded by presenting him with a document entitled "Vision for the Present and the Future of the Homeland". The charter proposed gradual but far-reaching reforms including freedom of expression, association, and assembly.

But reformers have been frustrated by the glacial pace of change. A draft NGO law has been discussed in the Consultative Council (or Shura council) but in the absence of any system for registration, the security services enjoy excessive and arbitrary powers, a Saudi activist said. Politically, he argued, the scope for NGO operations is limited, with state interference and controls on funding. Culturally, there is little public awareness of the importance of civil society and most NGOs are introspective. Seminars and discussions take place in peoples' homes and there is little networking with other groups.

In Morocco, NGOs can obtain information on legal conditions and there is a good degree of openness, said a Moroccan activist. But democracy NGOs like the Association of Democratic Women of Morocco face more subtle and surreptitious challenges, as the government tries to tame NGOs through a process of incorporation and by, for example, requiring NGOs to perform social functions that should be the responsibility of government.

The political thrust and relevance of Tunisia's civil society has been undermined by the disengagement of the country's youth, the decline of trade union activity and the elitist approach of established NGOs, argued a Tunisian activist. The regime has consistently used anti-terrorism as a pretext for harassing democratic forces and weakening civil society.

The Tunisian League for Human Rights is a case study of how the authorities disable NGOs through harassment, interference in internal affairs, accusations of having a foreign agenda and impeding foreign funding. An amendment to the Association Law in 1998 was adopted with the sole purpose of targeting the league which was later denied a European Commission grant (as was the Tunisian Women's Association for Research and Development) and forced to operate without formal registration which prohibits it from resorting to international funding sources.

Unions are traditionally Tunisia's second best organized groups after the army, said a North African union activist. But they lack commitment and capacity, an issue being addressed by groups like the NED-affiliated Solidarity Center. NGOs have a negative image in the region, driven in part by the perception that some are corrupted by money and respond to donors' agendas with the result that project-driven funds eclipse democrats' grass-roots initiatives.

As in Morocco, NGOs in Yemen operate within a vibrant civil society but face the challenge of resisting state encroachment on NGOs' autonomy. There are over 3,000 associations but only 300 or so work on democracy and human rights and only half of them are actually effective, noted a Yemeni activist. Local and foreign human rights organizations operate without major impediment but NGOs must renew their license to operate each year, an exhausting effort which saps scarce resources.

In Iraq, civil society organizations suffer from a lack of credibility, said a Kurdish NGO representative. In the three years since the invasion, thousands of NGOs have emerged, but many are family-based and of dubious worth and legitimacy. The Iraqi Constitution requires that the state reinforce the role of civil society but there is no legal framework since the relevant article has not been implemented.

It would be misleading to claim the backlash against democracy was particularly intense in the region since there was such a democratic deficit in the first place. Regimes are certainly curtailing the limited liberties and political space that activists eked out in recent years. But democracy is always a labor of Sisyphus and Arab democrats' own efforts to protect and expand civil society will doubtless continue.