No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ) will participate, on 10 May 2008 in Istanbul, in a civil society coordination meeting convened by the three DAD NGO partners (NPWJ, TESEV and HRITC) in preparation fir the Fifth Forum for the Future, the annual meeting of Governments and Civil Society of G8 and broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA) countries, whose aim is to examine the state of play of democratic reform in the Region, to be held in the United Arab Emirates on October 2008.
The meeting is organized in the framework of the Democracy Assistance Dialogue (DAD) program to assess the previous Forums and discuss the Civil Society’s priorities for the 2008 Forum for the Future. Participants will include prominent non-state actors from the Region, among which Saad Eddin Ibrahim, director of the Ibn Kalhun Center in Cairo, Bakthiar Amin, former Iraqi Minister for Human rights and President of the International Alliance for Justice, Mohsen Marzouk, Secretary General of the Arab Democracy Foundation and Amal Basha, President of the Sisters’ Arab Forum for Human Rights.
The DAD program, established in the framework of the first “Forum for the Future” held in Rabat in December 2004, is designed to foster productive dialogue between civil society and governments of the MENA region, through the development of political mechanisms of consultation that recognize non-state actors, NGOs and civil society as a legitimate and necessary counterpart for dialogue with State institutions on issues of democratic reform and human rights promotion. No Peace Without Justice, together with the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV, Turkey) and the Human Rights Information and Training Center (HRITC, Yemen), is in charge of implementing the DAD program that is co-sponsored by the governments of Italy, Turkey and Yemen.
For further information, please contact: Gianluca Eramo, by email: geramo@npwj.org, phone: +32 2 548 39 10
