November, 29 2010, 09:08am EDT
Egypt: Elections Marred as Opposition Barred from Polls
Violence, Arrests and Fraud Allegations Widespread
CAIRO
Elections to Egypt's People's Assembly on November 28, 2010, were marred by reports that opposition supporters were barred from polling stations and subjected to violence, Human Rights Watch said today. There were reports of numerous irregularities including arrests and harassment of journalists, denial of access for opposition candidate representatives to 30 polling stations visited by Human Rights Watch across the country and widespread allegations of voter fraud.
"The authorities promised that Egyptian civil society could monitor the elections without the need for international observers," said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division. "Unfortunately the repeated exclusion of opposition representatives and independent monitors from polling stations, along with reports of violence and fraud suggest that citizens were not able to partake in free elections."
Human Rights Watch did not monitor the voting or counting process and did not seek access to polling stations. Human Rights Watch representatives went to 30 polling stations in six governorates and interviewed voters, candidate representatives, as well as civil society observers and journalists outside polling stations in order to assess the human rights environment surrounding the elections.
Denial of Access for Candidate Representatives, Voters and Independent Observers
Human Rights Watch met with representatives of independent and opposition candidates outside most of these polling stations. They consistently reported that in the vast majority of cases, polling and security officials denied representatives access to polling stations when they did not have a police stamp on the notarized form identifying them as a candidate's proxy, and in many cases even where they did have such a stamp from a police station.
By law, each candidate has the right to one representative in every polling station in his or her district and candidates had provided representatives with notarized proxies. But on the morning of voting day, polling station officials told candidate representatives that this document was insufficient and that they would need to get it stamped by the local police station. An administrative court ruling in November determined that it was sufficient to have a general proxy, that has been notarized, and that the additional authentication by the police station was not necessary.
In Hadayik el Kobba, in the east of Cairo, the Hadayik police station refused to stamp the proxies of representatives of independent candidate Amr Zaki. As a result none of the candidate's representatives were able to enter the polling stations.
In Alexandria, Human Rights Watch observed independent candidate Osama Kamal try to enter the Mustafa Kamel polling station. Officials at the door turned him away and told him he needed another stamp from a police station.
A number of polling stations were closed for at least several hours during the day, in violation of regulations issued by the Higher Elections Committee, which ordered polls open between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. In the Cairo neighborhood of Dokki, Human Rights Watch observed the Hoda Shaarawy polling station for women, which opened at 8 a.m. At 9 a.m. security officers forcibly removed representatives of opposition candidates. At 9:30 a.m. they closed the polling station, though a large crowd outside called on them to "open the doors." Security officers there told Human Rights Watch representatives and a local journalist to stop filming and ordered them to move away. They did not give a reason for the closure. Around midday officers finally opened the gate again and slowly started allowing people in.
Arwa Abd al-Rahman, the representative for the Wafd party candidate at that polling station, told Human Rights Watch:
I had the right proxy, signed and stamped by the police station, and they still wouldn't let me in. The head of the polling station sent me to the State Security officer, who threw my permit away and told me "you're not going in," giving me a painful shove on my back to make me leave.
In Karmouz, in Alexandria, women voters who had planned to vote for the Muslim Brotherhood candidate running as an independent said that officers denied them access to the polling station. In the Delta city of Samanoud, Mustafa Nashar, 44, a lawyer and spokesperson for another independent candidate, Saad Ismat al-Husseini, told Human Rights Watch that poll officials arrived at Sayyida Zainab polling station at around 8:30 a.m., a half hour after the scheduled opening, and that police officers with them preventing voters from entering. "When I explained who I was," Nashar said, "one of the officers verbally abused me and hit me on my shoulder, saying, 'There are no elections today'."
Voters waiting to enter Sayyida Zainab, a women-only polling station, pushed their way in at that point and, Nashar claimed, found some see-through ballot boxes that already contained several hundred ballots, an indication, Nashar claimed, that ballot-stuffing had started early.
One female voter who did not wish to be named, told Human Rights Watch that at 3.30 p.m. at Sayyida Aisha, another women-only polling station in Samanoud, a police officer and colleagues, all without uniforms but wearing sidearms, entered the school from a rear door and expelled all the candidate representatives unrelated to the ruling National Democratic Party - as far as she knew these representatives were all associated with independent candidates.
Human Rights Watch encountered other instances where groups of young men, and sometimes women, entered polling stations in substantial numbers for the apparent purpose of disrupting polling and intimidating voters supporting opposition candidates. Ahmad Noh, a candidate for the legally-recognized leftist opposition party Tagammu` in the Gharbiyya village of Shubra Babil, in Mahalla, told Human Rights Watch that his representatives were also barred from polling stations.
At the Um al-Abtal polling station in Tala, in the governorate of Munufiya north of Cairo, Bashwat Hamed, a lawyer and proxy for independent candidate Muhammad Anwar Sadat said that at 11 a.m., having had to argue her way inside, officials kicked out the representative of an independent candidate affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. She said she then went into a room where she saw the head of the polling station stuffing ballots into a voting box.
When Human Rights Watch visited the Um al-Abtal polling station shortly before the 7 p.m. close of voting, several dozen opposition supporters tried to prevent poll workers from loading boxes of what they believed were fraudulently stuffed ballot boxes onto trucks. At that point the crowd was charged by a handful of uniformed Central Security officers along with several dozen young men in plain clothes swinging large sticks. Several Central Security armored vehicles escorted the ballot trucks to the main counting headquarters.
Human Rights Watch observed at that point another organized column of men with sticks approaching the polling station. When they arrived outside the polling station, Human Rights Watch overheard a uniformed officer tell them they were "no longer needed" and sent them to another location - a clear indication that the plain clothed men were being directed by police.
At the ballot counting center for Tala, several hundred Central Security troops and riot police formed a security cordon. Human Rights Watch observed inside the counting center dozens of uniformed security personnel as well as a similar number of men in plainclothes still carrying sticks. At that point counting had not yet begun.
Violence, arrests and the role of security services
According to Muslim Brotherhood lawyer Abdelmoneim Abdelmaqsud, security forces arrested a total of 186 members from in front of polling stations in Port Said, Ismailiya, Damietta, Beheira and Dakahliya.
In Abu Sulaiman neighborhood in El Raml of Alexandria, independent candidate Subhi Saleh told Human Rights Watch that he was roughed up during a visit to the polling station in the Alexandria suburb of Abis to hear voters' complaints. No representatives of candidates from parties other than the ruling NDP were inside, Saleh said. At about 1:30 p.m. in the street outside the station, several dozen young men attacked Saleh and a dozen of his supporters with fists and sticks. Saleh, who was running against Abd al-Salam al-Mahgoub, a former governor of Alexandria, said that someone grabbed him by the throat and choked him. Six witnesses confirmed his account to Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch met with Saleh about an hour later, at about 2:30 p.m., in a car on a highway at the edge of the village. "This all happened under the eyes of police," he told Human Rights Watch. His collar was torn and stained with blood.
Human Rights Watch spoke with several supporters of opposition candidates who were victims of election-day violence in the Delta city of Samanoud. Muhammad Awad, 37, a representative of independent candidate Abd al-Halim Hilal, was at the Sadat Secondary School polling station at around 9:30 a.m. when a large group of young men with knives and machetes came inside the school and pulled him and a colleague, 47-year-old Sayid Ibrahim Muhammad al-Wakil, out into the schoolyard. Awad had a large wound on his head above his left temple, dressed in bandages, from what he said was a knife attack. Al-Wakil had a vivid gash at least six inches long on his forearm, which he said he got when he raised his arm to shield his head from a blow with a wooden stick studded with nails. The two men told Human Rights Watch that they recognized some of their attackers, whom they characterized as low-level neighborhood criminals and drug-dealers. They claimed they also recognized in the schoolyard some men whom they said were with the Ministry of Interior's State Security Investigations division.
Mahmud Abd al-Wahhab Khalil, the 21-year-old nephew and also the driver of the same independent candidate, Abd al-Halim Hilal, was lying on a hospital bed in the Samanoud hospital when Human Rights Watch met with him. He said that a large group whom he characterized as "thugs" entered the yard of the Mubarak Educational Complex polling station, shouting that they were closing the school on behalf of Muhammad al-Berberi, an NDP candidate and also a former high-ranking police official. Khalil said when some of the men discovered his association with the opposition candidate they surrounded him and began beating him on the legs with large sticks. Khalil said then when he solicited assistance from uniformed security forces "they shooed me away."
Human Rights Watch met briefly with a local police official in Samanoud When asked about reports of violence against opposition candidate supporters, the official claimed to be unaware of any such incidents.
Attacks on Journalists
Security officers arrested and briefly detained at least 10 journalists and harassed and restricted dozens of others on voting day. Adam Makary, from Al Jazeera English, told Human Rights Watch that polling station officials denied him accesses to the six polling stations he had visited despite the fact that he had the required permits.
Photojournalist Bassem Mortada from Al- Masry al-Youm English told Human Rights Watch:
I was in Helwan, standing on the street outside a polling station taking pictures as five large buses arrived and large group of civil servants descended and went into the polling station. After a while an officer saw me and came over ordering me to stop. He made me go into the polling station with him, took my camera away and wiped off all the pictures. He questioned me for around 20 minutes and finally let me go after telling me that I was not allowed to take any pictures for the rest of the day.
In Shubra, officers arrested Ahram English Portal journalist Yasmine Fathy for half an hour. Jano Charbel, a journalist with Al-Masry al-Youm English, told Human Rights Watch:
In Mahalla, I had been filming outside and went inside the gate to the polling station. When I went inside a police officer stopped me and questioned me for about 20 minutes about who I was and what I was covering. They told me that I had to leave Mahalla immediately and go straight back to Cairo without visiting any other polling stations.
"The evidence suggests that Egyptian officials made a concerted effort to prevent opposition candidates from exercising their rights during voting," Stork said.
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
LATEST NEWS
Oxfam Says Israel 'Actively Hindering' Aid to Gaza in Violation of ICJ Order
"There is an indisputable, man-made, intentional deprivation of aid that continues to suck the life out of any and all humanitarian operations, including our own," said one campaigner.
Mar 18, 2024
The Israeli government is intentionally restricting the flow of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip by subjecting shipments to a prolonged and dysfunctional inspection process, arbitrarily rejecting items, attacking aid convoys, and limiting the number of crossings through which deliveries can pass, Oxfam International said in a report published late Sunday.
The report, titled Inflicting Unprecedented Suffering and Destruction, argues that Israel's continued obstruction of humanitarian aid is a direct violation of both international humanitarian law (IHL) and a January order from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ruled the Israeli government is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza and must ensure that assistance reaches desperate Gazans.
Oxfam said Sunday that "humanitarian access in the Gaza Strip has effectively worsened" since the ICJ handed down its interim order nearly two months ago, and conditions on the ground in the Palestinian territory have deteriorated rapidly. New data from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) shows that Gaza's "entire population" is facing "high levels of acute food insecurity" and 1.1 million people are experiencing "catastrophic" hunger—a figure that one expert called "unprecedented."
"The ICJ order should have shocked Israeli leaders to change course, but since then conditions in Gaza have actually worsened," said Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam's Middle East and North Africa director. "The fact that other governments have not challenged Israel hard enough, but instead turned to less effective methods like airdrops and maritime corridors is a huge red flag, signaling that Israel continues to deny the full potential of better ways to deliver more aid."
"Israeli authorities are not only failing to facilitate the international aid effort but are actively hindering it," Abi Khalil added. "We believe that Israel is failing to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide."
In its new report, Oxfam outlines seven ways in which the Israeli government is impeding humanitarian aid shipments and exacerbating one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in modern history:
In February—the first full month after the ICJ's order—Israel allowed just 2,874 aid trucks to enter the Gaza Strip, a 44% decline compared to the previous month, according to Oxfam.
The group said Israeli authorities "have rejected a warehouse full of international aid including oxygen, incubators, and Oxfam water and sanitation gear, all of which is now stockpiled at Al Arish just 40 kilometers away from the border of 2.3 million desperate Palestinians in Gaza."
Israel's military, which is armed by the U.S. and other major countries that are legally obligated to prevent genocide, has also blocked humanitarian staff from entering Gaza, adding "pressure and workload" to already overwhelmed aid efforts, Oxfam said.
Celine Maayeh, advocacy and research officer at Juzoor for Health and Social Development—an Oxfam partner organization—said Sunday that "there's been an alarming increase in cases of malnutrition among children in the last month, and yet the only food the team is able to find to feed people living in 45 shelters is some vegetables."
"There is an indisputable, man-made, intentional deprivation of aid that continues to suck the life out of any and all humanitarian operations, including our own," said Maayeh.
"If a famine is declared, it will already be too late for too many people—children are famine's first victims and are already dying in Gaza because of malnutrition."
Oxfam's findings are consistent with those of other aid organizations and lawmakers who have visited the region in recent weeks.
In January, U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told reporters that they witnessed "miles of backed-up trucks" stuck at border crossings as Gazans nearby struggled to survive, eating grass and drinking contaminated water.
The senators said they saw one warehouse full of items that Israeli authorities rejected in their inspection process, including oxygen cylinders and medical kits used for delivering babies.
Van Hollen said the warehouse was "a testament to the arbitrariness" of Israel's inspections.
Oxfam argued Sunday that the "only meaningful solution" to Gaza's intensifying humanitarian emergency is "an immediate, permanent, and unconditional cease-fire."
"Even the trickle of aid that a humanitarian response could provide under the current circumstances is being further obstructed by Israel's policies and practices, inflicting suffering on millions of Palestinians who are living under Israeli bombardment without access to food, clean water, and medical care," the group said.
Xavier Joubert, country director for Save the Children in the occupied Palestinian territory, echoed Oxfam's call for a cease-fire and warned in response to the new IPC figures that "we have a clear timeframe to stave off famine, and it demands urgency."
"If a famine is declared, it will already be too late for too many people—children are famine's first victims and are already dying in Gaza because of malnutrition," said Joubert. "Every minute counts for them. It should be on the collective conscience of Israeli authorities and the international community that every day without an immediate, definitive cease-fire and unfettered access for and to humanitarian aid is another catastrophic day of starvation and suffering, another step towards famine, and another death knell for Gaza's children."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Warren Says Trump Will 'Try to Ban Abortion Nationwide' If He Regains Power
"Donald Trump is proud that he overturned Roe v. Wade, he's proud he ripped away a fundamental freedom from millions of women," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Mar 18, 2024
Sen. Elizabeth Warren warned Sunday that Donald Trump will aggressively pursue a national abortion ban if elected to another term after the former president and presumptive 2024 GOP nominee boasted about the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade—a move that opened the floodgates for draconian attacks on reproductive rights across the country.
Trump nominated three of the five Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe in 2022, and he stacked lower federal courts with far-right extremists.
In a Fox News interview that aired Sunday, Trump said the justices "did something that from a lot of standpoints is extremely good" and repeated commonplace right-wing lies that Democrats support infanticide—claims that are frequently used to justify further rollbacks of reproductive freedoms. Next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case brought by right-wing groups that could dramatically weaken access to medication abortion.
The former president said he will be deciding "pretty soon" on a specific abortion policy for his 2024 campaign for the White House. The New York Timesreported last month that Trump has told advisers and allies that he "likes the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban with three exceptions, in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother."
Asked during the Fox News interview whether he thinks a 16-week abortion ban would be "politically acceptable," Trump responded, "We're gonna find out."
Trump's campaign previously dismissed the Times reporting as "fake news."
Trump on if a national 16 week abortion ban would be politically acceptable: "We're gonna find out."
He then lies about Democrats supporting the murder of born babies. pic.twitter.com/B5e41m9ftm
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 17, 2024
Warren (D-Mass.) said in response that "Donald Trump is proud that he overturned Roe v. Wade, he's proud he ripped away a fundamental freedom from millions of women, and if he regains power, he will go even further and try to ban abortion nationwide."
"By overturning Roe, Trump put judges and politicians in the driver's seat of women and their families' most personal healthcare decisions," said Warren. "He opened the door to even more extreme restrictions on our freedoms: criminalizing doctors, passing bans with no exceptions, and restricting access to IVF—and he brags about it."
"Trump said we're going to find out if the country will accept his plans for a national abortion ban, and he's right," the senator added. "He's going to find out this November when the majority of Americans who support reproductive freedom turn out to send President Biden and Vice President Harris back to the White House and remind Donald Trump that we will not go back—not now, not ever."
"As Project 2025 makes clear, opponents will not stop until abortion is banned and out of reach in all 50 states."
Right-wing groups, including the coalition known as Project 2025, have been working for months on a range of proposals that would further curtail reproductive freedoms at the federal level and undercut people's ability to receive basic medical care.
"In emerging plans that involve everything from the EPA to the Federal Trade Commission to the Postal Service, nearly 100 anti-abortion and conservative groups are mapping out ways the next president can use the sprawling federal bureaucracy to curb abortion access," Politicoreported last month. "Many of the policies they advocate are ones Trump implemented in his first term and President Joe Biden rescinded—rules that would have a far greater impact in a post-Roe landscape. Other items on the wish list are new, ranging from efforts to undo state and federal programs promoting access to abortion to a de facto national ban. But all have one thing in common: They don't require congressional approval."
Project 2025, a coalition of dozens of right-wing groups—including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and other anti-abortion organizations—is "drafting executive orders to roll back Biden-era policies that have expanded abortion access, such as making abortions available in some circumstances at VA hospitals," and "collecting resumes from conservative activists interested in becoming political appointees or career civil servants and training them to use overlooked levers of agency power to curb abortion access," according to Politico.
"Donald Trump is to blame for the ongoing abortion access crisis," Planned Parenthood Votes said in a statement earlier this month. "Because of his first-term actions, 21 states—and counting—now ban some or all abortion; and one in three women are blocked from access in their home states. As Project 2025 makes clear, opponents will not stop until abortion is banned and out of reach in all 50 states."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Russia's Putin Secures Another Term
The controversial leader won a record number of votes for a post-Soviet candidate even as opponents organized a protest at noon on the election's third and last day.
Mar 17, 2024
Despite protests on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin won reelection with more votes than any candidate since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Exit poll the Public Opinion Foundation (POF) put the final tally after three days of voting at 87.8%, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) at 87%, and Russia's Central Election Commission (CEC) at 87.3%. Putin will now serve another six-year term, meaning he will have been at the helm of the Russian state for longer than any leader since Catherine the Great, surpassing Josef Stalin.
The election comes less than a month after the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and is likely to lead to more tensions between the Russian and U.S. governments.
"It gives me some hope to see how many people are not happy with the dictatorship, the war, with what's happening in Russia."
"For a U.S. administration that hoped Putin's Ukraine adventure would be wrapped up by now with a decisive setback to Moscow's interests, the election is a reminder that Putin expects that there will be many more rounds in the geopolitical boxing ring," Nikolas Gvosdev, director of the National Security Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told the Russia Matters project.
With most of Putin's prominent opponents either dead, imprisoned, or in exile, the elections results were considered a foregone conclusion by both friends and foes of his administration.
A Putin spokesperson said in 2023 that the election was "not really democracy" but instead "costly bureaucracy," according to CNN. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said the election was "obviously not free nor fair."
However, Russian opponents of Putin did find a way to demonstrate their position with a protest called "Noon Against Putin." The protest was called for by St. Petersburg politician Maxim Reznik, according to The Guardian. Participants were instructed to head to a polling place at noon and cast a paper ballot for one of the candidates running against Putin, or to write-in another candidate or spoil their ballot.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny had endorsed the protest before his death last month in a Russian prison, leading the Independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper to dub it "Navalny's political testament."
The action drew crowds to polling places both in Russian cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg and at Russian embassies around the world.
"This is the first time in my life I have ever seen a queue for elections," one woman waiting in line in Moscow told
CNN. Russian journalists reported that the lines at some stations within the country reached the thousands, according to Reuters.
Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, who had also endorsed the protest, voted at the embassy in Berlin, while several protesters gathered outside the embassy in London.
"I expected there to be a lot of people, but not this many," London-based participant Maria Dorofeyeva told The Guardian, adding, "It gives me some hope to see how many people are not happy with the dictatorship, the war, with what's happening in Russia. And we want to stop it."
Ruslan Shaveddinov of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation told Reuters:
"We showed ourselves, all of Russia and the whole world that Putin is not Russia (and) that Putin has seized power in Russia."
"Our victory is that we, the people, defeated fear, we defeated solitude—many people saw they were not alone," Shaveddinov said
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular