OIC engagement on human rights has been an ongoing process at the organization, according to Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which plans to establish an independent human rights commission. Asked what prompted this almost unprecedented move, Ihsanoglu told Saudi Gazette in an online interview that the OIC adopted the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam in 1990. “Accordingly, a working group established following the adoption of the declaration drafted some OIC covenants on human rights. The increasing international attention accorded to human rights in recent years and the diversity of these rights has underscored the importance of enhancing the content of this declaration aimed at harmonization with international standards,” he explained. In a report on the State of Human Rights in the Arab Region in 2008, released in early December, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) said that the status of human rights in the Arab region had increasingly worsened. “Attacks on the limited public and political liberties that exist have escalated in most countries in the region,” it said. The report noted that Lebanon and Egypt played a vital role in the birth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and in the creation and promotion of mechanisms to protect human rights in the years that followed. “Yet these same mechanisms are currently being greatly undermined and slowly dismantled by the actions of Arab states,” it added. The human rights record of many Muslim majority countries leaves much to be desired. However, in recent years several countries in the Muslim World have undergone democratic transitions. Within the Arab World, countries such as Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Qatar, and Jordan have been taking steps on the road to political liberalization and democracy. Ihsanoglu said the prospective establishment of an OIC Independent Permanent Commission on Human Rights “must be viewed as a landmark event and a positive development in the four-decades-long history of the organization.” He stressed that human rights and man's dignity are an integral part of Islam and core components of Islamic culture and heritage. The human rights' chapter in the Program of Action emphasized the necessity to seriously endeavor to enlarge the scope of political participation, ensure equality, civil liberties and social justice to promote transparency and accountability in the OIC member states. It is significant to note, Ihsanoglu pointed out, that promotion and protection of human rights including the rights of women, children, youth, the elderly, and people with special needs, as well as the preservation of the Islamic family values, have been enshrined in the OIC Charter. “It requires the member states to uphold and promote good governance, democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, at both the national and the international levels,” he said.
