A Tyranny of the Majority? Islamists’ Ambivalence about Human Rights

Arab revolutions have not yet managed to lead to democracies that are genuinely tolerant of individual human rights. Islamists took power at the ballot boxes in Tunisia and Egypt, but their ambivalent approach to human rights reinforces cultural relativism and subverts universal human rights. This paper focuses on the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the Salafist al-Nour Party in Egypt and the al-Nahda party in Tunisia. It analyses the positions of these Islamist parties on international human rights in programmatic theory and political practice.