French paper highlights CEMO seminar on Islamists and human rights

The French newspaper, Le Figaro, has highlighted news about the seminar to be held on February 20 at the Centre for Middle East Studies in Paris (CEMO), which is chaired by Dr. Abdel Rahim Ali. 

The seminar will address Islamists' exploitation of human rights to reach their political goals. 

Ali said the philosophy of the seminar's topic matches the saying by French poet Jean Cocteau: 'the blind is the one who does not want to see'. 

"The concept of human rights, according to the new European left, is a truncated and incomplete thought," Ali said. 

"It limits the beautiful principles of human rights to freedom of speech," he added. 

Ali described this freedom of expression as 'sacred'.

However, he added that the European left usually overlooks equally important human rights, such as the right to lead a happy life and have high-quality education and health care.

He noted that freedom of expression as a right cannot do away with other important rights. 

CEMO will organize the seminar against the background of the exploitation of human rights by Islamists to achieve their political goals. 

Human rights, the centre believes, is a tree that hides behind it a whole forest of human rights.

There is no doubt that freedom of expression and other freedoms resulting from the long Western democratic process have certainly become necessary.

However, in the face of the challenges of terrorism and economic bankruptcy, human life and safety have become a top priority, in the light of what the great French journalist, Jean Lacouture, said: "The greatness of politics is measured by the extent to which it meets what is urgent and immediate".

Viewing the Middle East as only a structure ready to adopt human rights is tantamount to political blindness that has nothing to do with the real concerns and preoccupations of people on the streets in this part of the world.

Regional peoples have been crushed by civil wars and the atrocities committed by the Islamic State group and other similar terrorist organizations. 

This is why these peoples aspire for nothing but stability. They dream of restoring the dignity they lost a long time ago.

It seems that the discourse that belongs to the utopian concept of human rights in Europe is being manipulated by the pro-Turkish Islamist lobby. 

Indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood in Turkey and Qatar found the issue of human rights a Trojan horse that enables them to make gains in the West by raising the profile of Islamism in a different way.

The seminar will be an opportunity to expose this Islamist ploy, on one hand, and emphasize the harsh political and economic realities of daily life in the Middle East, on the other.

Human rights are undeniably important. Nonetheless, they can save the world in a different context. 

The seminar will begin at 10:30 am with welcome notes to guests. CEMO Executive Director, Ahmed Youssef, will then introduce the speakers.

These speakers include Senator Valerie Bouyer whose speech will be titled, 'Turkey, Europe's Disease'. 

Dr. Ali then will deliver a speech titled, 'Human Rights ... Reading from the Other Side'. 

Yves Trierre, editor-in-chief of Le Figaro, will deliver a speech titled, 'French Law in the Face of Islamism'.

Roland Lombardi, a geopolitical scientist and a teacher at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Aix-Marseille University, will deliver a speech titled, 'Human rights and real foreign policy ... are they compatible concepts?' 

Jill Mihalis, head of Kozour website, will speak before the question and answer session.