Head of the National Human Rights Council and former United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali renewed calls on Sunday for lifting emergency law, which has been in place since 1981. Boutros-Ghali also said he welcomed the idea of international observation on presidential elections.
Boutros-Ghali’s statements came during a meeting with a delegation from the European Union. He said that the National Human Rights Council accompanies all of its statements with a call to end emergency laws. Boutros-Ghali also emphasized the need to strike a balance between security and freedom.
"Egypt had observed international elections, and there is nothing wrong if its elections are internationally supervised," he said.
Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Council held a meeting on Wednesday at its Geneva headquarters during which it discussed a recent report by Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies that was harshly critical of human rights conditions in the Arab world for 2009. The Geneva meeting was attended by a number of rights activists and representatives from international organizations.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
