From the Advocacy Crowd: Welcoming Obama’s Speech

From the Advocacy Crowd: Welcoming Obama’s Speech

Human Rights Watch called President Obama’s speech to the Muslim world “a welcome message that Washington would not let the prospect of empowering Islamist parties deter it from supporting democracy in the region.” They noted, however, that Obama did miss an opportunity to draw attention to the state of emergencies put in place in Egypt, Syria and elsewhere that have “undermined respect for human rights” by allowing authorities to “suppress demonstrations, detain opponents arbitrarily, and try them in special security courts that do not meet international fair trial standards.”


 


Obama’s commitment to democracy as a human right was cheered by Freedom House as executive director Jennifer Windsor said that the president “clearly and forcefully asserted that all people yearn to speak freely and choose governments that are transparent, accountable and ‘govern with respect for all their people.’”


 


Meanwhile, POMED’s Andrew Albertson did a radio interview with Voice Of America. In his interview, Andrew called Obama’s speech “something along the lines of Nixon going to China. Of course, that was followed up by concerted and consistent strategy over time that brought to fruition over time and turned it into a rather fruitful policy for us. The question now is, how can they follow it up?”


 


 


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