Group concerned over civil liberties

Attacks on political freedoms in Jordan, Bahrain and Yemen indicate a worrying reversal in recent improvements to civil liberties across the Arab world, an advocacy group says.

NEW YORK // Attacks on political freedoms in Jordan, Bahrain and Yemen indicate a worrying reversal in recent improvements to civil liberties across the Arab world, according to a US-based advocacy group. In its latest survey of political and civil rights, Freedom in the World 2010, researchers at Freedom House downgraded the three Middle East countries from the "partly free" to "not free" category.

The report criticises recent decisions by King Abdullah of Jordan to dissolve parliament and postpone elections. Bahrain's Sunni rulers have cracked down on political figures from the Shiite majority, while turbulence in Yemen has seen parliament sidelined, researchers said. "For the first few years after 9/11, we saw modest improvements in places like Morocco, Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait, and Lebanon. Between 2007 and 2008 things stagnated," said the group's research chief, Arch Puddington.

"This year there was a real decline. We are very disappointed that it is moving in the wrong direction, and that the countries moving in the wrong direction were ones we saw as potential reformers." To address the decline, Mr Puddington called for a civil society groups to fill the political vacuum in many Arab countries, and said economic growth would improve an authoritarian political landscape.

"The rest of the world is just passing the Middle East by," he said. "Setting loose the entrepreneurial spirit that the Mideast was once known for would actually stimulate democracy over the long run." The report also criticises the harassment of opposition politicians in Morocco, but lauds improvements in Iraq and Lebanon, where better security has yielded improvements in free political activity.