Jordan Times
Friday, March 4, 2005
Arab-European Dialogue on
Legal Humanitarian Issues begins today
By Mahmoud Al Abed
AMMAN — Civil society institutions have a bigger role to play in the South-North
Dialogue, especially between Arabs and Europeans, organisers of an international
seminar said on Thursday.
The two-day Arab-European Dialogue on Legal Humanitarian Issues, organised by
the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in cooperation with the Arab Programme for Human
Activists (APHRA), is scheduled to open today at the Holiday Inn.
“In order to achieve deeper understanding, the dialogue is to be widened to
include also civil society's perspective,” said Hardy Ostry, regional
representative and head of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation's (KAF) Amman office.
The seminar, Ostry added, will try to “create non-governmental partnership to
serve human rights issues.”
“We aim at an open dialogue that addresses all minor and major issues reflecting
the real issues of concern for both the European Union as well as the Arab
world,” he said in a KAF statement.
The foundation and APHRA believe that the successive events in the region and
the world have posed many challenges for the North-South ties and particularly
those between the Arabs and Europeans.
These challenges “require that we scrutinise the relationship between
civilisations and intensify the dialogue, especially between Europe and the Arab
world.”
KAF's Jordan office was founded in 1981 and functions through a partnership with
the Ministry of Social Development.
The Amman office, according to KAF web sources, is “dedicated to the promotion
of democracy, the rule of law and social market economy.”
The foundation's main objective in Jordan is to promote socio-political
development through contributing to improving democratic and social structures.
Through consulting and training activities, the foundation is trying to
encourage all Jordanians to get involved in political, social and economic
processes so that they can play a better role in strengthening democratic
culture.
APHRA backs activists in human rights field in the Arab region, who undergo
detention, torture and whose rights are violated.