Egypt's "moderate leadership"

ObservatioNZ takes offence at Helen Clark's comments on the opening of a New Zealand Embassy in Egypt. According to Clark,

"[Egypt] does have moderate leadership [and] we should be there," she said. "It [the opening of an embassy in Cairo] fits in with the general strategy we have of empowering the moderates, building up the relationships with the moderate leaders of the Islamic world."

But as ObservatioNZ points out, the Egypt is an authoritarian state which rigs elections, beats voters, imprisons journalists, kills demonstrators, suppresses public protest, imprisons without trial, and tortures people (both for its own purposes and as a subcontractor to the Americans). If this is "moderate", I'd hate to see what Clark considers "extreme".

Not that I object to opening an embassy per se. Talking to regimes like this isn't necessarily bad, and we already have embassies in Tehran, Riyadh, and Beijing. But "talking" should not involve an endorsement of an authoritarian government which denies its citizens the right to choose their own leaders, or of human rights practices which are among the very worst in the world. Unfortunately, that is precisely what Clark has done by calling the Egyptian regime "moderate".

Once upon a time, the Labour party stood for democracy and human rights. Once upon a time, it would have made it clear that we were holding our nose when talking to people like Pervez Musharraf, and raised human rights with people like Recep Erdogan. Instead, they're holding their tongues. What has happened to the Labour Party?