Arab Intellectual Alleges Report Coverup

[Rose Siding]

CAIRO, Egypt - An Arab intellectual has accused the United States and Egypt of keeping the United Nations (news - web sites) from publishing a survey of the Arab world because it criticizes the U.S. invasion of Iraq (news - web sites) and the state of democracy in Egypt.

The U.N. Development Program denied those accusation by the document's chief coordinator, Nader Fergany. A UNDP spokesman said Tuesday the document was still being edited and would be published within a few months.

U.S. officials also have denied trying to block the report, "Freedom and Good Governance in the Arab World," and the Egyptian government has publicly criticized it for not seeking its views.
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The 2004 edition was to have been issued by the UNDP in October but has been blocked, its authors say, because it criticizes the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the state of democracy in Egypt. Cairo has been under virtual one-party rule for decades.

Fergany, frustrated by the monthslong delay in releasing the report, published parts of it in the leftist Egyptian newspaper Al Arabi. The document calls the occupation of Iraq "one of the most blatant forms of foreign intervention" and accuses U.S. troops of committing "savage strikes" and inflicting collective punishment against Iraqis.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050111/ap_on_re_mi_ea/arab_report