Al-Shoura [Archives:2004/703/Press Review]

11 Jan 2004
Main headlines
– Opposition wavers of boycotting democracy conference
– Dr al-Mutawakil: Opposition parties play their national role despite of difficulties
– 16 new detainees from the Grand Mosque
– Israel's curse prevails over democracy conference
– Jawf teachers maintain their strike
– Journalists Syndicate membership list to be published on 20 Jan
Columnist Dr Abdumalik al-Mutawakil says in an article the conferences of democracy and human rights in which official and public delegations take part are changed into a flagrant outward appearance of despotism and violation of human rights. Governments protocols impose discrimination between the government delegations and the public delegations under various pretexts such as security requirements. Governments are governments and the public is a public and there is no way for heir meeting.
It would have been taken easily if the matter was related to places of eating, residence and means of transport, but to have such phenomenon extended to keeping representatives of the people silent and only official delegations have the right to speak and distribute duties at the conference of democracy and human rights, that is a matter too difficult to keep silent about unless the people's representatives have got used to suppression and weakness.
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