The Cairo Conference set up the International Campaign Against Aggression on Iraq which helped to coordinate the worldwide demonstrations on 15 February 2003.
One outcome of the conference was the production of the 'Cairo Declaration', which took a stance against the then-looming Iraq War; it also noted the negative effects of capitalist globalisation and U.S. hegemony on the peoples of the world (including European and American citizens).
In addition, it noted that "In the absence of democracy, and with widespread corruption and oppression constituting significant obstacles along the path of the Arab peoples' movement towards economic, social, and intellectual progress, adverse consequences are further aggravated within the framework of the existing world order of neoliberal globalisation", while firmly rejecting the 'advance of democracy' justification for attacking Iraq.
[2] The British Stop the War Coalition, in particular John Rees of the SWP, initiated the signing of the declaration by European leftists, including politicians Jeremy Corbyn, George Galloway and Tony Benn, Susan George (scholar/activist based in France), Bob Crow, Mick Rix (general secretary, UK train drivers' Aslef union), Julie Christie, George Monbiot, Harold Pinter, Ghayasuddin Siddiqui (Muslim Parliament), Tommy Sheridan (Scottish socialist), Dr Ghada Karmi (research fellow, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter), Tariq Ali.
However, some delegates were critical of the Muslim Brotherhood's cooperation with the government in a series of stage-managed anti-war rallies held before the invasion of Iraq.
German journalist Harold Schuman who attended the conference expressed frustration that most speeches did not analyse the role of Arab governments but rather took the easy way out by placing all the blame on the US.
According to the Al-Ahram, the conference was organised by Alkarama (Dignity), Al-Ishtirakyin Al-Sawryin (Socialist Revolutionary Party), Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimin (Muslim Brotherhood) and Al-'Amal (Labour), and was held at the Egyptian Press Syndicate, with close to 600 participants and observers from around the world, including a delegation of 80 South Koreans and 20 Canadians.
[9] The Muslim Brotherhood reported there were activists present from Palestine (including Hamas members), Iraq, Lebanon, Venezuela, Turkey, Greece, Nigeria, Britain, Tunisia, Sudan, France and Iran.
[10] Speakers included Ali Fayed of Hizbullah,[11] Sadala Mazraani of the Lebanese Communist Party,[9] James Clark of the Canadian Peace Alliance,[9] Feroze Mithiborwala of the Muslim Intellectual Forum of India,[12] John Rees of the Socialist Workers Party (UK)[13] and Rose Gentle (the mother of Gordon Gentle, a British soldier killed while serving in Iraq, and a leading figure in Military Families Against the War).
According to Al-Ahram Weekly,[19] German journalist and author Harald Schuman attracted the ire of Nabil Negm, the chief political adviser to the Iraqi president, after comments he made insisting that claims that all the problems of the Arab world could be laid at the door of the US were only half-true and that the conference was not meant to "defend the Iraqi regime and Saddam Hussein in any shape or form".