After rejecting U.S. calls for international election monitors, the responsibility for ensuring the validity of elections falls squarely on the Egyptian government, writesAl Masry Al Youm’s Ashraf Khalil. “‘If the elections on Sunday are perceived to be as non-transparent and lacking in credibility as people expect, then we could see a revival [of the Washington-based push for domestic reform],’” POMED’s Stephen McInerney told Khalil. Over at the Los Angeles Times’ Babylon and Beyond, Amro Hassandescribes the National Council for Human Rights’ (NCHR) preparations for domestic monitoring. According to NCHR vice president Mokbel Shaker Egypt is prepared to supervise the election: “‘Monitoring elections through a foreign authority is a procedure that could only be taken in underdeveloped countries carrying out elections for the first time, and Egypt certainly doesn’t belong to such a category.’”
Amnesty International released a new report this week on the treatment of detained Shi’ite activists in Bahrain. Following their initial trial on October 28, the activists report that they were beaten, deprived of sleep and forced to remain standing for long periods in retribution for complaining about previous torture during their hearing. Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme called on Bahraini authorities to “conduct a prompt and independent investigation into both these allegations of torture,” adding that official must now “take steps to protect the 23 defendants from possible further retaliation, following their new allegations.”
At the Guardian’s Comment is Free, human rights lawyer Margaret Owendescribes the trial in Turkey of 151 Kurdish politicians, lawyers, and other leaders as “a trial that would shame any democracy.” Observers have “widely condemned” the process - evidence-gathering and courtroom procedures “breach all international and European standards on human rights and fair trials,” Owen writes, and the trial is essentially political, not legal. She mentions the closure of pro-Kurdish political parties, arrests of Kurdish political leaders, and bans against some civil society organizations. This trial, Owen concludes, “will reveal Turkey’s true status in the context of democracy, justice and the rule of law.” The judge will decide at the end of this week whether the trial will continue or whether the detainees will be released, and Owen calls on the ruling AKP to bring the trial to a close and release the accused.
Yesterday, Al Masry Al Youmreported that Mohamed ElBaradei has accused Egyptian officials of wiretapping the office of his campaign’s general coordinator. On his Facebook page, ElBaradei wrote that he will “request an investigation into this scandal which has attacked the rule of law and violated the personal privacy of citizens,” adding that this is further indication of the regime’s “insistence on oppression and on dispersing opposition voices and the demand for democratization.”
On Saturday, the Muslim Brotherhood held a series of protests in Alexandria, following the reported rejection of some members’ registration papers last week. Observers said that violence broke out in some neighborhoods between demonstrators and security forces. Also on Saturday, the Supreme Administrative Court ruled that all political parties must be allowed broadcasting time on state television in order to publicize their platforms.
Al Jazeera reports that Egyptian security officials rejected registration applications from a group of Muslim Brotherhood candidates on Wednesday. Of the 132 applications members filed at police stations across the country, over 35% were thrown out by officials. The candidates will have a chance to resubmit their applications before the November 5 deadline, but Muslim Brotherhood leaders expressed concern that authorities will continue to use Egypt’s complex registration system to limit the number of Brotherhood candidates participating in the election: “‘It is just another way to impede the electoral process, to prevent nominees from exercising their right to run. The papers of those who are unfavourable to the state then disappear,’” Sayid Gadallah, a lawyer and Brotherhood candidate, told Al Jazeera.
After two and a half years, Turkish officials lifted the nationwide ban on YouTube over the weekend. A Turkish court suspended the popular video sharing site in May 2008 because of offensive videos about the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. According to Turkish Transport Minister Binali Yildirim, whose office is responsible for Internet regulation, the offending videos were removed last week, clearing the way for YouTube to once again operate in Turkey. In a statement, YouTube said that it had not removed the videos and the Turkish press reported that a Turkish businessman living in Germany bought the rights to the videos and subsequently took them down. Despite the end of the YouTube ban, Turkey’s controversial Internet crimes law remains in place and according to observers over 6,000 websites are still censored by Turkish officials.
On Thursday, the trial of 25 Shiite activists accused of plotting against the Sunni Al-Khalifa regime began in Manama. The defendants all pleaded not guilty and complained that they were abused while in pre-trial detention, a charge prosecutors denied. According to Agence France-Presse, human rights activist Abduljalil al-Singacetold the court “We were subjected to physical and mental torture (and) were placed in solitary confinement.” If convicted the accused face life imprisonment.
On Tuesday, Egypt’s Administrative Court upheld a lower court ruling forcing the government to up the minimum wage to keep pace with rising living expenses. The original suit filed by members of the Labor for Change movement Nagy Rashad and Khaled Ali called on the government to increase the minimum wage for public and private sector employees to 1,200 pounds ($207 USD). Despite the ruling, the activist remained skeptical that the government will implement the decision. Ali toldAl-Masry Al-Youm, “If they wanted to implement this verdict, they would have done so following the March verdict. […] In fact, the government is now working on filing an appeal against the verdict before a higher court. It is clearly displeased with today’s verdict.”
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On Saturday, Egypt’s High Administrative Court ruled that the Interior Ministry police should be prohibited from the nation’s universities. According to the Los Angeles Times’ Babylon and Beyond, the court said in its ruling “The presence of permanent Interior Ministry police forces inside university campuses represents an impairment of the independence guaranteed to the university by the constitution and the law.” The suit was originally brought by a group of Cairo University professors in 2008. While the court’s decision is final, the government could use its powers under the aegis of the emergency law to allow police to return to campuses.
Iraq’s Supreme Court ordered the Iraqi parliament to convene after a seven month delay on Sunday, according to a report from the BBC. While one Iraqi constitutional lawyer called the order a “formality that would do nothing to break the political deadlock,” Reidar Vissercalls the move a “small triumph for Iraqi democracy.” However, Visser points out that “what the main factions are currently doing, i.e. postponing the election of a parliament speaker until the architecture of a more comprehensive deal including prime minister and president is ready, is not in line with the constitution,” either. He goes on to describe the continued negotiations between the Kurdish parties and Maliki’s coalition, saying that “there is nothing that should prevent the Kurds from picking a winner within a week or so.”
Muhammad Sahimiwrites at the Tehran Bureau that a letter critical of Supreme Leader Khamenei’s handling of political prisoners, supposedly written by Sadegh Larijani, chief of Iran’s judiciary, has been published on an opposition website. Sahimi questions the authenticity of the letter, but does not rule out the possibility that it is genuine, noting that “if a letter with the above content has actually been sent to the Supreme Leader, it would represent a historic document.” The letter contains many accusations that the Supreme Leader and regime loyalists interfered with the judiciary both before and after the elections in 2009. Sahimi highlights one accusation in particular. ” [The letter] states, Khamenei revoked the power of the judiciary the day before the election and transferred it to the SNSC (Supreme National Security Council), which is packed with his cronies. What was he anticipating that he could not trust the judiciary and had to order a transfer of power?”
In other news, Radio Free Europereports that an Iranian blogger critical of the regime, Mehdi Khazali, has been arrested. The article notes that the arrest is particularly interesting because Khazali’s father is Ayatollah Abolghassem Khazali, a conservative cleric and supporter of the government. Radio Free Europe also reports that Ali Shakurirad, a leader of the banned Islamic Iran Participation Front, was “summoned for questioning and detained”, most likely in response to an article he wrote about Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, the chief prosecuter of Iran.
Al Jazeera reports that Bahraini officials have officially charged the 23 Shiite activists arrested in August with terrorism and conspiring against the government. According to Abdurrahman al-Sayyad, a representative of the public prosecutor, the men are accused of “forming and financing an illegal organization aimed at stopping the state from carrying out its functions.” If convicted, the defendant could face life sentences, al-Sayyad added. The trial will begin on October 28, one week after Bahrain’s contested parliamentary election.
On Wednesday, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the United States Institute of Peace co-hosted a panel discussion titled “Towards a Palestinian State: Is Institution Building Succeeding?” The discussion was moderated by Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen, a Program Officer in USIP’s Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution. The panelists were Nathan Brown, a Nonresident Senior Associate of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment, Neil Kritz, the Senior Scholar in Residence in the Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution at USIP, Ghaith Al-Omari, Advocacy Director at the American Task Force on Palestine, and Howard Sumka, Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East for USAID.
For the full notes, continue reading below. Or, click here for the PDF.
Human Rights Watch has released a new report entitled “Looser Rein, Uncertain Gain: A Human Rights Assessment of Five Years of King Abdullah’s Reforms in Saudi Arabia.” The 57-page report looks at four key areas: women’s rights, freedom of expression, judicial fairness, and religious tolerance.
The lack of independent judicial oversight during the November parliamentary elections “raises expectations of fraud,” according to an article in Al-Masry Al-Youm. The lack of oversight can be traced to the 2000 elections when “‘…the country experienced its first ever free elections, as the constitutional court had decided that each ballot box had to be supervised by a judge,”’ says Nasser Amin, the general director of the Arab Center for Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Profession. In part because of this rule, the Muslim Brotherhood was able to mount a real challenge to the NDP in 2005. This precipitated the amendment of Article 88 of the Egyptian constitution in 2007, which established an “11-member official electoral monitoring committee, composed of judges and non-partisan public figure,” that the opposition views as corrupt. Leftist Tagammu Party leader Refaat al-Saeed said the committee resembles a secret organization: “’Where is the headquarters of this committee? What phone number does it have, or email address?’”
The article goes on to list other concerns, including the presence of government backed NGOs, the use of manual voting lists rather than computerized lists, and the possibility that the NDP is actively negotiating with opposition groups to simply award them a set number of seats in parliament: “‘…it (the government) will distribute the 100 seats that it won’t keep for the NDP between the Wafd, Tagammu and Nasserist Parties as well as independents, keeping 344 seats for members of the dominant party,’” Amin, told Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Adding to recent criticism of the AKP-backed constitutional referendum, Soner Cagaptaywrites that the reforms will give the ruling party complete control over the Turkish judiciary: “One of the new amendments changes the court’s size, however, increasing the number of regular members to seventeen (three elected by parliament and fourteen appointed by the president). […] Seven members are already known to be pro-AKP, so the addition of Gul’s new appointees will make the court safe ground for the party for the first time since it gained power.” Cagaptay concludes that the referendum itself is not the real issue, the issue is how AKP will use the new amendments to consolidate its political position: “On paper, the new amendments promise to improve civil liberties in Turkey. In light of the AKP’s track record on these issues, however, Washington should monitor to what extent the party follows the spirit of the provisions in execution.”
At The New York Reviewof Books’ blog Can Yeginsuargues that enthusiasm for Turkey’s recent constitutional referendum is misguided: “I cannot share the view, espoused by some in Turkey and a great many abroad, that this referendum process has been good for Turkey in general or for the development of her democracy in particular.” According to Yeginsu, many of those in the West who have praised the referendum have a “fundamental misunderstanding” of what the vote actually means. In his view, the purpose of the referendum was to implement Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan’s “court-packing plan,” while the rest of the social reforms were simply the ruse AKP used to garner both international and domestic support.
The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) held a panel discussion today to discuss the ongoing political impasse in Iraq. The event was moderated by Michael Svetlik, the Vice President of Programs for IFES. The speakers for the event were Ted Galen Carpenter, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy at the CATO Institute, Perry Cammack, a professional staff member for Senator John Kerry who focuses on the Middle East, and Sean Dunne, IFES Chief of Party in Iraq.
(To read full notes continue below the fold or click herefor pdf)
Analysis of Turkey’s constitutional referendum continues. An editorial in The Guardianargues that the world should judge AKP by its political and economic record, not by unfounded allegations that it has a hidden “Islamist” agenda: “A small revolution is taking place in a country whose history has been plagued by repression and army-backed coups, and it is happening democratically and bloodlessly. A system in which generals and judges held power, toppling four governments since 1960, is being rolled back with democratic consent.” An article in The Nationalsuggests the opposition party’s failure has helped AKP consolidate its control over the Turkish political system: “Turkey’s main opposition party is in such disarray that its leader could not even cast a vote in Sunday’s referendum on constitutional reforms. In his concession speech that night, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the chairman of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), had to apologise to his constituents because he had failed to make sure that his name was on the voting rolls. It was a fitting end to a bad day for Turkey’s once-dominant party.”
On Monday, September 13th, POMED hosted an event entitled “Is Turkey Becoming Less Democratic?” The event was moderated by Bill Schneider, Distinguished Senior Fellow and Resident Scholar at Third Way and the Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University. The discussion featured three panelists: Gonul Tol, Executive Director of the Center for Turkish Studies at the Middle East Institute; Daniel Brumberg, Director of the Muslim World Initiative at the U.S. Institute of Peace; and W. Robert Pearson, former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and President of the International Research and Exchanges Board.
POMED’s full notes continue below or read them as a pdf.
