The Corner

Prague Document

The Prague “Democracy and Security Conference” ended with Vaclav Havel, Natan Sharansky, and Jose Maria Aznar issuing a Prague Document (.pdf), which President Bush also endorsed in his speech . It’s worth a read. Among its points:

1. To demand the immediate release of all non violent political prisoners in their respective countries

2. Instructing diplomatic emissaries to non-democratic countries to actively and openly seek out meetings with political prisoners and dissidents committed to building free societies through non-violence.

4. Raising the question of human rights in all meetings with officials of non-democratic regimes.

5. Seeking national and international initiatives, in the spirit of the Helsinki Accords, that link bilateral and international relations to the question of human rights.

8. Isolating and ostracizing governments and groups that suppress their peaceful domestic opponents by force, violence, or intimidation.

9. Isolating and ostracizing governments and groups that threat other countries and peoples with genocide or annihilation.

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Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, European Union, Middle East Studies Association, BBC: Your silence is deafening.

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Civil-Military Relations, and a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly.
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