Human Rights Watch urges the West to back peaceful protests and end the ‘Arab exception’

[Judi Lynn]

Human Rights Watch urges the West to back peaceful protests and end the ‘Arab exception’
By Associated Press, Updated: Sunday, January 22, 3:59 AM

CAIRO — Popular uprisings sweeping the Arab world exposed biases by Western governments that supported Arab autocratic rulers for the sake of “stability” while turning a blind eye to their repressive policies, Human Rights Watch said Sunday.

The New-York based group urged democratic governments to adopt persistent and consistent support for peaceful protesters and to press both autocratic rulers and newly emerging democracies to avoid intolerance and seeking revenge.

“The events of the past year show that the forced silence of people living under autocrats should never have been mistaken for popular complacency,” HRW’s executive director Kenneth Roth said. “It is time to end the ‘Arab exception.’”

~snip~
In some ways, the unexpected uprisings amounted to a slap to the United States and other Western governments, which had supported autocratic regimes that served as bulwarks against Islamists hostile to the West and appeared to offer stability in a volatile region.

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/human-rights-watch-urges-the-west-to-back-peaceful-protests-and-end-the-arab-exception/2012/01/22/gIQACBgvHQ_story.html

[pampango]

1. "the forced silence of people living under autocrats should never have been mistaken for popular

complacency..."

“The people driving the Arab Spring deserve strong international support to realize their rights and to build genuine democracies..."

"HRW urged the West to recognize that Islamists are the “majority preference,” while keeping pressure on the emerging new governments to respect human rights, especially regarding women and religious minorities."

"The popular uprisings also have alarmed other repressive regimes such as China, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Ethiopia, Vietnam, and Uzbekistan, where rulers were worried about facing similar fates. The group said China and Russia in particular acted “obstructionist,” using their veto power at the U.N. security council to halt pressure on Syria to stop killings of protesters."

The West (and the rest of the world) should indeed provide the "people driving the Arab Spring (with) ... strong international support to realize their rights and to build genuine democracies."