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Mansour Rashid KIKHIA: Human Rights DEFENDER from LIBYA

Victim of a crime of forced Disappearance (a la Mehdi Ben Barka) in Cairo, Egypt on 10 December 1993, while the world was celebrating the 45^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of which Mr. Kikhia was a prominent DEFENDER. Egypt, it is assumed, was not concerned with that celebration, as its government was busy infopleting the final touches to the conspiracy to abduct Mr. Kikhia.

What is important to know is:

1. Egypt recognized officially that Mr. Kikhia was abducted from his hotel in Cairo but it has, during the entire 14 years of the abduction, abstained from giving any information on the whereabouts of or what happed to Mr. Kikhia. Its answer to all concerned parties, including the UN working party on forced or involuntary disappearance, has been constant: “there is nothing new to report on”.

In the word of Mr. AMEEN, an Egyptian Lawyer familiar with the file of the crime: “ everything seems to indicate that the Egyptian security authorities do not wish the truth to be revealed concerning the disappearance of Mansour Kikhia”.

2. The Government of Libya, which in theory has the obligation to protect its citizens, has never presented, to our knowledge, any request and much less lodged a protest to the Government of Egypt for the disappearance of its prominent CITIZEN who assumed for full eight years the post of Libya’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and its Representative to the United Nations in New York

3. The Arab Organization for Human Rights (AOHR), which negotiated and arranged for Mr. Kikhia’s travel from Paris to Cairo to attend, as member of the organization’s Board, its General Assembly in Cairo, failed to take the necessary actions, including possible removing of its headquarter from Egypt, to pressure the Egyptian Government and to eventually save the life of Mr. Kikhia whose safety was, and still is, legally and morally the responsibility of his host, the Arab Organization for Human Rights.

4. Two unconfirmed and contradictory reports persist concerning the fate of Mr. Kikhia:

(a) That President Mubarek cleared Mr. Kikhia’s extradition to Libya whose government carried out his execution. His corpse, according to the report, was dissolved in acid for FINAL and DEFINITIVE DISAPPEARANCE

(b) That President Mubarek opposed Mr. Kikhia’s physical elimination and ordered his sending to SIWA Oasis in the desert bordering Libya where he is still alive, but in very bad health conditions.

The Libyan League for Human rights calls, once more, on the Egyptian Government, to infoe to reason, and publicly declares its repentance by allowing a neutral inquiry into Mr. Kikhia’s disappearance. We also call on the “ Arab Organization for Human rights” still headquartered in Cairo, nearby Hotel SAFIR where Mr. Kikhia was last seen, to break its neutrality and demand to Egypt, through effective pressure, including the withdrawal of its headquarters from Egypt, to shed light on Mr. Kikhia’s fate and to assume its full responsibility in the abduction. We deeply believe that the continuation of  “black out” on information on what happened to Mr. Kikhia, on 10 December 1993, is totally ininfopatible with the principles the “Arab organization for Human Rights” claims to defend. The continuation of conducting, as usual, its activities from Egypt while one imminent member of its Board of Director remains in abduction, is morally wrong and practically non defensible as this situation has increasingly eroded any credibility the AOHR may have had in the field of defending Human rights. If the AOHR failed to have the vision or the DETERMINATION to defend and protect one of its prominent members from flagrant cruel and atrocious violations of his basic rights, the right to life, how can it defend or claim to defend a infomon citizen’s rights in Libya or anywhere else?

 9 December 2007