Arab officials, activists call for human rights upgrade

Participants in an Arab human rights conference have underlined importance of improving human rights in the Arab countries. They made the remarks during an Arab Conference for Developing Arab League Human Rights system on Monday, with Arab Parliament speaker Ahmad Al-Shamsi saying the conference was an added value to efforts to develop human rights in the Arab region. Addressing the opening session of the conference, Al-Shamsi said conferees should discuss the "deteriorating" human rights situation in Syria. "The simplest human rights principles are to live in peace and security, but that is not available for the Syrian people who, large numbers of them, left their houses afraid to be killed to live in shelters," he said. Al-Shamsi said the Arab countries supported every attempt to end the Syrian conflict. He said the Arab world was facing severe political, economic and social crises which make human rights file on the brink of collapse which thus degrade human rights record of the Arab countries. Yemeni 2011 Nobel peace prize winner Tawakuk Kerman said the democratic transformations in the Arab regional compelled the Arab governments to create suitable atmosphere for rights and freedoms.