Ali calls for dialogue with Europe to reveal realities of Islamist groups

Member of the House of Deputies, the Chairman of the Center for Middle East Studies in Paris (CEMO) and the Board Chairman of al-Bawaba News Abdel Rahim Ali called Wednesday on Arab governments and peoples to be more open to Westerners.

He added at a seminar on human rights in French capital Paris that the Arabs should not risk allowing Westerners misunderstand them.

"Why should we allow the West to misunderstand us all the time?" Ali, one of several speakers at the seminar, asked.

He said Westerners needed to know the history of Islamist organizations in the Arab region and whether these organizations were about democracy and human rights.

He noted that revealing facts about Islamist movements was the reason why he and a group of specialists and experts founded CEMO.

"We established it in Paris also so that we can be close to the European continent," Ali said.

He said the center was not a social organization, but one that makes political studies, organizes seminars and conferences and translates books.

Ali said he addressed Europeans everywhere, including in the European Parliament, the Press Club in Paris and in the United Nations.

"We also organized several conferences as well as came up with the weekly breakfast mechanism at the center to increase our interaction with French journalists," Ali said. "We only want to have common dialogue on a common scientific ground that has nothing to do with any country or affiliation."

Ali said CEMO aims to create consensus on Islamist movements in the Arab region, including on their objectives.

Titled "Human Rights at the Time of War on Terrorism and social Crises: Between Idealism and Realism", the seminar is moderated by Ahmed Youssef, CEMO's executive director.

Speaking at the seminar – apart from Ali – will be General Robert Pryce, the former commander of French troops in Yugoslavia, the former director of the Anfalid military museum, and the current president of the Napoleon Foundation.

Gilbert Sinuet, a French journalist and writer who accompanied French President Emmanuel Macaron during his latest visit to Egypt, will also speak at the seminar, along with Roland Lombardi from the French National Institute for Studies and Research of the Islamic and Arab Worlds.