Authors: Nehal El-Sherif and Laura Schmid
Cairo (dpa) - In June, a Bahraini military court sentenced activist Ali Abdulemam to 15 years in jail on charges of spreading false information and seeking to overthrow the government.
Six months later, Maikel Nabil, an Egyptian blogger, was sentenced to two years in prison for using the internet to spread "lies about the armed forces."
Almost a year after the death of Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi stirred up a political maelstrom across the region, human rights - one of the key demands of the Arab uprisings - are still being put to the test.
There has been some good news. Tunisia's one-time dissident Moncef Marzouki, for instance, has been elected the country's president.
But many activists are worried that the victory of the Islamist Ennahda party in the October election could yet derail the country's democratization efforts.
"Tunisians revolted to establish a new system, where human rights are at the centre of reforms, not for giving the old system a religious component,” said Tunisian rights advocate Yassin Ayyari.
According to him, Ennahda lacks an encompassing reform programme and "instead of addressing reforms, moves the debate towards sentimental, religious problems."
"The most jeopardized human right is the right to be different," Ayyari told a recent panel discussion on human rights in Cairo. He said that many followers of Ennahada falsely equated criticizing the government with criticizing Islam.
The rise of Islamism in the wake of the region's uprisings has triggered fears that the tide will impede the promotion of human rights, by subtly changing the mindset of the people and leading them away from their initial struggle for a new system that respects human rights.
"The Islamist parties in Tunisia and Egypt focus on religion and thereby herd people away from the real issues on the ground," Khawla Mattar, head of the United Nation Information Centre in Cairo, told dpa.
Dozens of Egyptians have been killed in 2011 in a string of clashes with army and police forces over the right to protest, she noted.
Frej Fenniche, a senior human rights officer at the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, believes that “human rights in Egypt have developed negatively” since the popular uprising that forced Hosny Mubarak out of office in February.
According to Fenniche, the military rulers who took over after Mubarak have failed to implement the expected legislative changes.
Worst still, they have also referred over 12,000 civilians to military trials – an average of about 50 a day - between February until August alone. Unlike in civil courts, defendants cannot appeal verdicts passed by military tribunals.
“The reality on the ground is that the Supreme Court of the Armed Forces is adopting the inhumane methods of the Mubarak regime. Over the past months, we have recorded several cases of torture and excessive violations of the right to be tried before civil courts by the (ruling) military council," said Nehal al-Banna, of the Cairo Institute for Human Right Studies.
The situation is not much better in the Gulf region, which has also been hit by a yearning for change.
“There is no clear picture about the future in Yemen. There are realistic fears of a civil war as people increasingly distrust each other,” said Yemeni activist Hend al-Nasiri.
A November Gulf-brokered deal involving a peaceful power transfer is still not complete, with forces loyal to long-standing president Ali Abdullah Saleh and his rivals occasionally locked in bloody violence.
In Bahrain, pro-democracy protests have so far failed to topple their long-standing rulers, with the Gulf Cooperation Council accused by activists of playing a key role in quelling the protests, either by force or through political means.
“The grip of the Al-Khalifa (royal) family on power in Bahrain is still tight. They use excessive force to keep power, forcing many human rights activists into hiding," Hussain Yousif, a coordinator from the Bahrain Press Association, told dpa.
According to Yousif, who fears detention and is in exile in Egypt, "everyone who critically speaks out in public (in Bahrain) faces arrest and false accusations."
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) seems to be one of the few countries to have avoided the protests that have erupted almost everywhere else in the Middle East. Yet, government opponents say they do not feel safe. The case of five political activists detained for seven months on charges of insulting the Gulf country's president, for instance, have caused a stir.
They were finally pardoned in November, one day after being sentenced to up to three years in prison, following strong pressure from international human rights groups.
According to Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, their freeing was a positive step.
"But a commutation alone will not undo the government's terrible mishandling of this case," Whitson said.
Also picked up by Bikya Masr and Bahrain Spring