After Casablanca and Cairo, the third conference on the reinforcement of civil society in the south and east Mediterranean area was held in Gaza from 1 to 4 may.

Organised jointly by the FIDH and its affiliate, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, the Gaza seminar formed part of the MEDA programme developed by the FIDH in the context of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership established by the 1995 Barcelona Declaration.

The location and date of this seminar made it an especially noteworthy event. The 4 may date marked the end of the interim period allowed by the Oslo Accords and fixed de facto the start of Palestinian independence. Moreover the place symbolised both the fight for the defence of Human Rights and the laboratory being used for a special experiment: the autonomy of the Palestinian Authority and it’s progress towards independence. Gaza gave the participants the occasion to observe the vitality of a Palestinian Civil Society which suffers as Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, emphasised, from a certain schizophrenia. Nowadays, in effect, for those who fought for a long time against the occupier, it is no more simply a question of pointing the finger at Israel but also of taking up the misbehaviour of the Palestinian Authority and of strengthening civil society in the face of the rise in power of the Islamists.

Gaza, for the defenders of Human Rights, who had made the journey from Tunis, from Rabat or from Paris, was also a visit to this over-populated strip of land accessible though two bottle-necks which close according to political developments in the region and a sight of an area divided up by settlements which give rise to so many daily frustrations and humiliations.

The seminar brought together a hundred or so legal experts, judges and defenders of Human Rights. In addition to members of Palestinian Civil Society and of the FIDH - including it’s president Patrick Baudouin, representatives of the Tunisian Ligue and of the Moroccan Organisation, many representatives from the European Commission and the High Commission for the Human Rights, members of the College of law of Al-quds University and individuals responsible for the Palestinian Bar spoke from the rostrum.