Research

The world’s march towards democracy and human rights faced another setback on Tuesday. The New York Times is reporting that Egypt’s authoritarian government will extend its emergency rule, that was originally implemented in 1981 and has allowed Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak to dominate the country’s election process ever since then, for another two years. The Obama administration is partially to blame for this defeat for democracy, as The Washington Post’s editorial board explains:

Mr. Mubarak took advantage of the policy of the Obama administration, which has chosen to soft-pedal the cause of democracy and human rights in Egypt and across the Middle East... The result is that Mr. Mubarak, despite his failing health, has been encouraged to work toward granting himself another six years in power in next year's presidential election. His previous presidential campaigns have been marked by massive fraud and the jailing or violent suppression of the opposition -- which is why he needs the emergency law. It allows police to arrest and indefinitely detain people without charge and makes free assembly by opposition groups virtually impossible… Mohammed ElBaradei, the former U.N. nuclear inspector who now leads the domestic reform movement, has pointed out that it will be impossible for him or anyone else to challenge Mr. Mubarak in the election if the law remains in place.

Egyptians aren’t the only people who have fallen victim to the Obama administration’s indifference towards important human rights issues.  Demonstrators protesting the fraudulent elections in Iran received no support from the leader of the free world when their exercise in free speech was violently put down.  And voters in the Sudan were told that their elections had been “free and fair” by the White House despite the aggressive voter suppression campaign waged by the same regime responsible for the genocide in Darfur.

Since taking office last year, President Obama has made clear his diplomacy is centered not on democratic dissidents and human rights prisoners around the world, but on “their oppressors.” Sadly, by placing democracy promotion “on a back burner” in countries like Egypt, Iran, and the Sudan, ruthless authoritarian regimes have responded not be unclenching their fists, but by grasping more securely to power.