Need to Teach Human Rights in School Stressed
Raid Qusti, Arab News —
RIYADH, 6 January 2008 — Recommendations from a workshop sponsored by the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) regarding the introduction of human rights into the Saudi school curriculum will be sent to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for approval, the Kingdom’s unofficial human rights watchdog said yesterday.
Over 40 participants from 16 higher educational institutions in the Kingdom met yesterday to discuss the matter. They agreed that a subject called “Human Rights” should be taught in Saudi universities and also at the secondary, intermediate and elementary levels.
“Even though the workshop was not a legislative one, the recommendations will be sent to higher authorities,” an NSHR spokesperson told Arab News.
NSHR President Dr. Bandar Al-Hajjar told the discussion panel during his opening speech that the initiative was part of his organization’s efforts to create awareness among Saudis about human rights in the Kingdom.
“The society works to spread the culture of human rights. We also have established a website and we publish a weekly and monthly newsletter about human rights,” he said.
Al-Hajjar pointed out that in the near future the rights body would establish an information center where statistics and data would be collected on different sorts of human rights violations in the Kingdom. The information center will also include data on complaints from members of the public.
He said that since its establishment in 2004, NSHR has received 12,000 complaints from locals and expatriates concerning alleged violations of their human rights.
In addition, he said, NSHR has made random visits to hospitals, prisons and public and private institutions to monitor conditions there.
Many participants in yesterday’s workshop argued that the introduction of human rights into the Saudi school curriculum was due to the influence upon its officials of “Western ideas of human rights.”
One Saudi academic asked, “Where were we before the issue of human rights was brought up by the West?”
Other participants, however, pointed out that Saudi society should not think of progress in the Kingdom as being due to Western influences; they observed that such moves had a positive impact upon the country’s welfare and progress.
The NSHR president defended the initiatives by the rights body saying, “Our work stems from the principles of Islamic Shariah and international laws and regulations signed by the Kingdom.”
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/
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