RIYADH, 4 February — A high-profile symposium on human rights will be organized by the Riyadh-based Naif Arab Academy for Security Sciences here from tomorrow. This will be the first event of its kind to be staged by the body to discuss the human rights situation in the Arab world including the Gulf states, according to Dr. Diab Al-Badayneh, dean of the NAASS Studies and Research Center.
Al-Badayneh said here yesterday that representatives from more than 25 countries will participate in the event to discuss topics such as civil liberties in Islam, freedom of thought and expression, political freedom, human dignity, equality and rights of man. Arab countries including Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Sudan, Qatar, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Palestine will take part in the three-day event.
He said compared with the Western models, Islamic approach toward human rights was more comprehensive.
This symposium will be organized by the academy in cooperation with the Islamic Universities Union. An Arab regional organization enjoying an autonomous status and accredited with the United Nations, the academy, has introduced a number of study programs like forensic science, psychological health care, civil defense, and studies on human rights, industrial safety and judicial system.
The academy seeks to fulfill the needs of Arab law enforcement agencies for an institution that promotes research on security issues, offer postgraduate programs and conduct short-term courses in crime prevention. It has also planned to award doctoral degrees to researchers in selected areas.
According to Al-Badayneh, the symposium aims to increase awareness about human rights with special reference to Islam. The human rights conditions in the Arab world are better than ever, he said and added that human rights watchdogs like Amnesty International have no realistic assessment of situations in the Arab countries.
The three-day event will focus on the concept of human rights in Islam and the conditions of the human rights in the Islamic states.
Al-Badayneh said the academy, founded in 1980 by the Council of Arab Ministers of Interior, had published more than 250 major titles on a range of subjects from human rights and crime, to terrorism and drugs.
