Conference on Political and Religious Reform in the Arab World
Final Declaration

30th of June, 2005

To celebrate the second anniversary of its reopening, the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies convened its Second Annual Conference on Political and Religious Reform. The conference¾which was held at ICDS' premises¾was attended by over a hundred prominent intellectuals and political activists from Egypt, the Arab region, and the rest of the world.

Within the framework of their discussions on political reform in the Arab World, the participants acknowledged the unprecedented, vigorous increase in political awareness and activism and the proliferation of movements struggling for comprehensive political reform throughout the Arab region, particularly in Egypt. They, nonetheless, encouraged the current large number of reformist political forces to capitalize on their strength by creating a unified front with the common goal of promoting peaceful democratic transitions. The participants also called upon all governmental and non-governmental political, security and media bodies and institutions to perform their national duty in ensuring the establishment of stable, transparent and accountable political institutions capable of implementing the necessary reforms.

In order to promote the aforementioned goals, the participants put forth the following demands and suggestions to all Arab regimes¾ particularly the Egyptian:

1. The immediate suspension of emergency laws as well as all other laws constraining political, social and religious freedoms, and the release all prisoners of conscience. The participants welcomed Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's courageous step of actually responding to these particular demands, today the 30th of June, 2005.

2. The accession to the Egyptian Judges' Club demands for complete independence of the judiciary from the executive and legislative branches; and permitting complete judicial supervision of the entire electoral process.

3. Lifting all the current legal and extra-legal restrictions on political parties and civil society organizations which constrain their margin of freedom and impede the development of their capacity to carry out their activities, which include their right in publicly expressing their interests and opinions in both the official and unofficial media, and in conducting peaceful opposition campaigns and demonstrations to the regimes' polices and practices.

4. Adherence to the international standards and procedures that would guarantee fair, transparent and free elections including the presence of local and international observers; the updating and revision of voters registry lists; judicial supervision of the registry, voting and counting processes; the replacement of wooden ballot boxes with transparent ones; raising public awareness of the electoral process; and the conduction of objective voter education campaigns particularly in radio and TV.

5. Ending the extensive security interference in all aspects of political life in Egypt particularly in the affairs of political parties, civil society organizations, academic institutions, and all forms of the media. This guarantee will not only bring the Egyptian regime in line with international human rights standards, but it will also create an environment conducive to freedom of expression and association and prevent the harassment, intimidation and detention of political activists such as what recently occurred in the cases of Ayman Nour, hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members, and several members of the opposition Kefaya movement.

6. Continuing the pursuit of political dialogue and cooperation between all local, regional and international, governmental and non-governmental, religious and secular parties with the aim of promoting democratic transitions and human rights guarantees in the Arab World within a framework which includes all parties that are committed to abiding in all respects to democratic principles and values.

7. Working for the promotion of transparency of all governmental departments, particularly those responsible for planning and administering the national budget; and combating corruption by consolidating mechanisms of accountability through giving an effective supervisory role to legislative councils and other non-partisan bodies, as well as through completely disclosing information regarding the national budget and its expenditure to the public. According to the participants, these steps would not only conform to good governance standards but would also increase the efficiency of the public and private sectors and decrease the unemployment rate.

On the issue of Islamic reformation, the participants called for reopening the doors of Ijdihad after their closure for eleven centuries in order to bring Islam up to date with current Muslim societal values, to respond to the current external accusations labeling Islam as a religion breeding fanaticism and terrorism, and to refute internal radical religious ideas. For this reason, the participants of the conference proposed the following recommendations:

8. Resuming and executing the previous recommendations put forth at the "Islamic Reformation" conference convened by ICDS in October 2004 and proposing additional intellectual frameworks to be discussed and tackled in future workshops.

9. Assisting intellectuals and scholars calling for Islamic reformation to create a new school of Ijdihad that would be autonomous from traditional religious institutions which currently impose a monopoly on religion.

10. Encouraging participants to rely on Qurantic texts as authentic sources for refuting the various traditional sources of Islamic heritage.

11. Emphasizing the fact that Islam is a religion which cherishes principles of freedom, justice, tolerance, and constructive dialogue. In this context, participants stressed the importance of intensifying a dialogue between all international powers and Islamic political movements for the goal of unifying reform visions and stands.

12. Stressing the importance of incorporating Islamic movements into the democratic process and enabling the moderate elements among them to participate given that they accept democracy as a strategic alternative and that they recognize the primary principles upon which both civil society and the modern state are built.

13. Changing religious educational curricula to free it from material propelling intolerance based on religious, cultural, and ethnic differences and including material teaching unconditional acceptance of the "other".

14. Widely publishing and disseminating the findings and recommendations of the Second Annual Conference on Political and Religious Reform in all possible print, radio and television media outlets.