| CONFERENCES & WORKSHOPS | |
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1993
The First Palestinian
Conference on Democracy: "Towards a Democratic
Society."
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SUMMARY:
| The four day conference
began with a series of lectures from speakers worldwide
and was attended by Valerie Grove of PASSIA. Following a
theoretical overview given by Dr. Said Zeedani of BirZeit
and Professor Kevin Boyle of Essex University, England,
each speaker discussed the "model" of democracy
as applied in or to their own countries. Where
applicable, similarities were drawn with the situation in
the OPT. Countries represented were Germany (Freimat Duve
MP, SPD); Russia (Professor Vasily Istratov, Dean of
Moscow State University); Canada (Professor Jim Graph,
Toronto University); South Africa (Dullah Omar,
University of Western Cape; Director of Community Law
Centre); Nicaragua (Dr. Alejandro Bendana, History
Professor and Director of Centre of International
studies); Cuba (Raul Valdez Vivo, Director, Party Cadre
School); and Chile (Eduardo Abed Rabo, Head of Youth
section, Chilean CDP). Each speaker answered questions
from the audience. The following two days were devoted to
workshops covering democracy as relating to Women,
Religion, Family and the PLO. The political future and
the task of defining Palestinian democracy was part of a
workshop which included Professor Ibrahim Abu Lughod, Dr.
Sari Nusseibeh and Dr. Riad Malki. Keynote speeches were
given by Dr. Udo Steinbach of the Deutsches Orient
Institut and Asma Khader Head of the Womens Union in
Jordan. The final day included workshops on Development,
Human Rights and Democracy. The keynote speaker was
Dullah Omar and the conference concluded with a tour of
the Gaza Strip.
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