‘Two years ago, with great fanfare, Egypt's president,
Hosni Mubarak, set up a new organization called the Egyptian Supreme Council
for Human Rights. The aging dictator named Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former
secretary-general of the United Nations, as the Council's chairman. 

‘The government-backed body was
greeted with widespread skepticism from the Egyptian and international human
rights communities. The Council had no independent authority to investigate
allegations of human rights abuses committed by the government. Its role was
strictly advisory. And it did not report to the president, rather to a body
known as the Shura Council, which is roughly like Britain's House of Lords. 

While many non-governmental human
rights organizations characterized the Council as a cosmetic sham and refused
to cooperate with it, others were hopeful that the mere creation of such a
council by a government with a long and sordid history of human rights abuses
represented a dramatic 180-degree turn away from past policies.’ 

The Silence Of The Shams