31 May 2012 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
Egyptians reacted in shock and despair after official results of the first round of Egypt’s first multi-candidate presidential elections were announced on Monday afternoon on Egyptian State TV’s main Arabic news channel. Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate and Ahmed Shafik, a former air force commander and Mubarak’s last prime minister will face each other in the run-off poll (scheduled for 16 and 17 of June) after leading in the first round, Farouk Sultan, Head of the Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission told journalists at a televised press conference on Monday.
Morsi won 5.76 million votes with Shafik following closely behind with 5.5 million votes out of a total of 23.3 million valid votes, Sultan said. Playing down voting irregularities, Sultan insisted these were minor and did not affect the overall results of the poll.
The outcome of the first round of voting provoked a new wave of angry condemnation from analysts and ordinary Egyptians alike. Author Alaa Aswany, an outspoken critic of the military junta tweeted urging Egyptians to boycott the elections en masse. He argued that the second round of the vote was certain to be rigged .
”Foul!” shouted a group of men watching the news conference at a roadside café in the working class district of Boulak.
The run-off pitting Shafik, a “Mubarak regime remnant” against a “colourless” member of the Muslim Brotherhood has been described by many Egyptians as a “nightmare scenario”. The election has polarised the country, with one camp wary of Islamist rule and another concerned about the continuation of the military dictatorship.
“If either of the two candidates becomes president, it would spell the demise of our revolution,” lamented Omar Ahmed, a young activist in a Facebook post.
The reaction to preliminary results of the poll has veered between sarcastic humour and outright indignation. Scores of internet users used social media networks Facebook and Twitter to call for fresh marches to protest the “illegitimacy” of the vote.
“It is no longer a choice between Shafik and Morsi. The choice is now between Canada and Australia,” is a joke widely shared on Facebook. This kind of humour reflects the disillusionment of a public growing increasingly weary of political and economic turmoil in the country. Meanwhile, scores of Egyptians used Facebook and Twitter to call for fresh marches to protest “the illegitimacy of the vote”.
Fifteen months after the mass uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, many Egyptians feel their revolution has been hijacked by both Islamists and the military generals overseeing the transitional period. The Muslim Brotherhood, which had joined ranks with the young revolutionaries in Tahrir Square demanding “Bread, freedom and social justice” during the 18-day mass uprising has since been accused of pursuing its own interests. Some activists say they have lost trust in the Islamist group after it aligned itself with the military authority to secure seats in parliament. They also accuse the group of reneging on earlier promises not to field a candidate for the Presidency. The Muslim Brotherhood and the ultra-conservative Salafis together won nearly three-quarters of the 508 seats in parliament in last year’s legislative elections.
Claims by the Justice and Freedom Party contender Mohamed Morsi — now the frontrunner in the race — that he represents the revolution have been rebuffed by thousands of protesters who flocked to Tahrir Square on Monday night chanting “No to Shafik ! No to Badie!” (the latter being the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood). Many Egyptians wonder if the loyalty of an Islamist president would lie with the religious movement rather than with the country.
But revolutionary youth leaders who spearheaded the 25 January uprising are now rethinking their position and say they are contemplating throwing their weight behind Morsi. They argue that “Shafik has the blood of the revolution martyrs on his hands.” The change of heart came after complaints about vote rigging filed by their favoured candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi — a die-hard Nasserist — were rejected by the Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission and Sabbahi was declared officially out of the race. The revolutionaries had hoped a probe into Sabbahi’s complaints would tip the scale in his favor at the last minute, allowing him to compete in the run-off. Sabbahi, whose popularity has surged in recent weeks, came in a close third , garnering 4.82 million votes in the first round.
Wael Ghonim, administrator of the “We Are All Khaled Said” Facebook page that was a catalyst for the 25 January Revolution, has said he will support Morsi in the second round if he agrees to form a national salvation government representative of all factions of Egyptian society, including liberals and Copts. Youth leaders from the 6 April movement have also been in consultations with Morsi about the way forward, a sign that the group will support him and not Shafik.
Shafik has been trying to court the young revolutionaries, pledging to “bring the fruits of the revolution” between their hands. He warned the pro-democracy activists that their “revolution was being hijacked by the Islamists who mean to exploit it for their own ends”. His claims however appear to be falling on deaf ears and have provoked the ire of the revolutionary youths. His supporters are mostly those yearning for stability and have faith that only he can put the faltering economy back on track.
But the Tahrir protest — as well as demonstrations in other major cities across the country — reflect the heightened tensions and the growing frustration felt by millions of Egyptians who say they have to choose between two evils and that “neither candidate represents the spirit of their revolution.”
“It’s like having to choose between death by the sword or by hanging. In both cases we die” said 28-year-old Magued Mounir, a protester in Tahrir Square.
“If Shafik is president, then it’s back to square one…as if the revolution never happened. He is an extension of the old autocratic regime. And voting in an Islamist President would mean giving up our dream of a secular, modern Egypt,” said Yasmine Roshdy, another activist who was chanting against both candidates.
“We are trapped between a rock and a hard place,” said another protester who added that he had voted for Sabbahi in the first round.
In a repeat scenario of earlier protests, unidentified attackers stormed the square at midnight Monday attempting to break up the demonstration. A few hours earlier, Shafik’s Cairo campaign headquarters in Dokki was ransacked and set ablaze. Many Egyptians fear that the violence may be the start of worse unrest to come.
Journalist Shahira Amin resigned from her post as deputy head of state-run Nile TV in February 2011. Read why she resigned from the “propaganda machine” here.
27 Apr 2012 | Sub-Saharan Africa
“The press in Sudan is going through the most intense crackdown,” said Adil Color, a writer and editor at Al-Midan newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP). “If we publish an issue [of the newspaper] that is critical and includes topics the government is uncomfortable with — such as the conflicts in Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan — they punish us by confiscating our next issue.”
Al-Midan’s print run has been confiscated on four different occasions in the last month, most recently on 24 April, but the newspaper remains defiant. For many years it has had to be distributed underground when the SCP was a banned in Sudan. The tabloid’s byline now reads “daily newspaper, but temporarily published on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday”.
In a recent contribution to the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Blog, a Sudanese journalist and activist, Abdelgadir Mohamed Abdelgadir, claimed that the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) confiscates independent newspapers as a way of censoring the press.
This strategy, believes Abdelgadir “focuses on economic impoverishment — leaving newspapers more vulnerable than ever.” Most newspapers in Sudan generate income from newspaper sales and advertisements, but independent newspapers that publish daring reports like Al-Midan and Al-Ayam depend on selling the few thousand copies they print, being unable to afford large print runs.
“Al-Midan does not get any advertisements from government companies like other newspapers, and private companies fear repercussions, so they also do not approach us for advertising,” said Color.
The “vulnerability” referred to in CPJ’s blogpost is best seen when editor-in-chiefs are pressured into making decisions for the benefit of the newspaper and the dozens of employees . When the Al-Jareeda newspaper was confiscated on 27 and 29 March because it wouldn’t stop publishing the daily columns by Zuhair Al-Siraj, a Canada-based Sudanese columnist who is critical of the government in his writings, the financial losses forced the newspaper’s management to cancel the column.
“Newspapers are not really given a choice, they can continue publishing as long as they do not allow certain journalists to write,” said Salih Mahmoud, a lawyer who is part of the newly-established Sudanese Council to Defend Rights (SCDR).
Starting this Tuesday, another writer, Heydar Al-Mokashy, will not be able to write for a week.
Mahmoud points out that the topics the state considers red lines are usually national issues that touch upon the future of the country. The booby-trapped subjects include: the wars in Blue Nile, Southern Kordofan and Darfur, and human-rights abuses but the list of banned topics grows every day.
Alawia Mukhtar, a journalist at the Al-Sahafa newspaper was moved from the patch she used to cover, South Sudan, after the paper’s management began receiving text messages from the NISS demanding it remove and/or halt the publication of any news about South Sudan.
“I cannot write about South Sudan because I can’t publish the opinions of sources from there, ” says a frustrated Mukhtar, who claims she has been accused of being part of the banned political party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North Sudan Faction, (SPLM-N) because her writings introduced her to many SPLM-N sources.
Recently, the speaker of parliament and a well-known Sudanese official both said that any journalist who interviews a source from a rebel movement is betraying his nation. Sudan’s Vice-President, Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, has spoken about a fifth column that is under scrutiny in light of the current clashes between Sudan and South Sudan, accused of spreading rumours that there is a lack of petroleum and other needs as war looms. Mukhtar thinks they are referring to journalists and that this is a direct threat.
From her perspective, Muktar feels trapped in a world where a text message sent to her boss, the editor-in-chief, can deem a story she worked on for hours “unpublishable”, but at least she is still able to see her byline in print.
Mujahid Abdullah has worked as a journalist since he graduated from university. From 2005, he was published in four different newspapers and was a well-known name until he was banned from writing in all print newspapers in Sudan. Abdullah says: “The ban came about 20 days ago, I feel like I was confiscated along with my pen, I’m waiting to be returned to the newsstand.”
Abdullah’s last job was writing for Alwan, a newspaper that was suspended for about 2 months from January to March this year. “I feel like my civil and constitutional rights and my right to make a living were taken away from me,” he adds.
The decision to ban him from writing was delivered orally, as are many NISS decisions. When newspapers are forced to kill stories or an edition is confiscated the message is normally delivered by an NISS officer talking directly to the editor-in-chief or in a short and succinct phone call.
In theory, the NISS does not have the power to confiscate newspapers, or to ban a newspapers and journalist or in fact, carry out any act against the press. If it believes that a certain journalist of newspaper is impacting national security, the security apparatus should file a complaint at the Press and Publications Council, the only body responsible for all print media.
“When we asked the Press and Publication Council about our case, they said the NISS does not tell us when they carry out such things,” says Adil Color.
Reem Abbas is a Sudanese freelance journalist. She has been published in Inter-Press Service (IPS), IRIN news, the Women International Perspective, (the WIP), Menassat and daily Sudanese newspapers. She tweets at @ReemShawkat
3 Feb 2012 | Uncategorized
Last month the Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) expressed alarm at the escalating intensity and popular appeal of anti-Islamic rhetoric from politicians in the USA and Europe. This critical issue has long acted as an animus for the OIC and, in December, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution titled, “Combating intolerance, negative stereotyping, stigmatisation, discrimination, incitement to violence, and violence against, persons based on religion or belief”.
This resolution, which was similarly accepted by the United Nations Human Rights Council last March, was sponsored by the OIC, the second largest inter-governmental organisation after the United Nations with a membership of 57 states spread over four continents. For more than a decade the OIC’s push for such an outcome has met with resistance from western states – in particular, the USA. These members of the General Assembly objected to the inclusion in the previous drafts of a provision that States should commit themselves to “combat the defamation of religion” (p. 355). It was, they argued, an affront to free speech. They reasoned that ideas and beliefs, such as religion, should not be afforded the same protection and rights as individuals.
The amended text put forward by the OIC, which urges efforts to face down prejudice and incitement to violence against religious believers, has been deemed acceptable by the Obama administration — mindful of the second amendment — and is perceived as a sign of progress by a number of human rights and secularist advocacy groups. The influential Human Rights First declared that the UN “tackle[d] religious intolerance without limiting free speech” and praised the resolution’s omission of the ‘the harmful concept of ‘defamation of religions'”.
The Center For Inquiry similarly congratulated the General Assembly for approving measures that both opposed incitement to violence and protected our right to “defame” (i.e. disagree with) religions, whilst worrying that the opacity of the language employed could be used to justify the persecution of dissidents and religious minorities.
The hopeful reactions of these organisations dwelt little on the resolution’s sponsor. In the words of UN Watch, the NGO which exists “to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own charter”, “the problem is not with the document per se, but with its sponsor“.
It is often stated that the OIC has pushed this resolution so zealously in order to combat anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic feeling in the West since 9/11. Indeed, a quick glance through the OIC’s most recent “Observatory Report on Islamophobia” will reveal the focus is entirely upon the USA and Europe. It appropriately points to the radicalisation hearings of Congressman Peter King, the pointless torching of the Koran by Terry Jones, and countless acts of vandalism against Mosques. No doubt next year’s report will justifiably express grievances at the treatment and suspicion of New York’s Muslims at the hands of the NYPD, the Islamophobic statements of a Republican Presidential candidate, the thuggery of the English Defence League and, perhaps, the state-sponsored murder of Iranian scienticists.
But the important part of the resolution, which encourages the USA to make efforts to fight “incitement to violence, and violence against, persons based on religion or belief”, is much more likely to be adhered to in the US and Europe than in most of the OIC nations. There are scores of enforced laws and policies in western countries that prohibit multiple forms of discrimination against people based on numerous protected characteristics, including choice of religion. It is self-evident that an Ahmadi Muslim is safer and freer in Pennsylvania than Pakistan, and an Assyrian Christian in Italy than Iraq.
But it seems that the assorted countries of OIC do not prevent the persecution of religious believers or protect the right of an individual to practise their chosen religion very well.
In December, the House of Lords discussed the situation of Christians in the Middle East. The Archbishop of Canterbury described the “flow of Christian refugees from Iraq”. Lord Parekh noted that “there are 14 million Christians in the Middle East, which is roughly equal to the number of Muslims in the European Union. In recent years, they have been subjected to discrimination, harassment and violent attacks. We know all this.” Lord Turnberg quoted Andrew White, the Anglican “Vicar of Baghdad”, who said “the only place in the Middle East that Christians are really safe is Israel”.
A similar tale emerges from the pages of the most recent “World Watch List” compiled by Open Doors, a charity that works for and with the world’s persecuted Christians. The organisation asserts that the “focus is on persecution for their faith, not persecution for political, economic, social, ethnic or accidental reasons” and it has determined that this year nine of the top 10, and 38 of the top 50, countries where Christians face the “most severe” persecution are OIC members.
Last January, Indian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia (number three on the list) were accused of converting Muslims to Christianity and were subsequently arrested, interrogated and beaten. In the UAE (number 37), to convert from Islam is — speaking legally — to risk the death penalty and expatriate Christians who openly proselytise face arrest and deportation.
When Colonel Gaddafi’s tyrannical rule collapsed, David Gerbi, a Libyan Jew who went into exile in 1967, returned home full of optimism and ready to restore the Dar al-Bishi synagogue in Tripoli. A rabble of bigots, however, lacked his nonpartisan solidarity, turning up at his hotel and protesting that “there is no place for Jews in Libya”. The National Transitional Council, which now represent Libya at the OIC and which Gerbi joined at the start of the uprising, has shown no sign yet that it will “recognise the valuable contribution of people of all religions” (as instructed by the UN resolution) in post-Gaddafi Libya.
The situation of Ahmadi Muslims, often considered heretics and non-Muslims, further demonstrates the problems that a number of OIC members have with enshrining the freedom to practise religion. Ahmadis are subjected to regular persecution in multiple forms, including murder, banning of publications, prohibited proselytising and vandalism of mosques, in countries including Indonesia, Pakistan and Egypt.
The picture is not much prettier with regards to other basic freedoms. According to Freedom House’s newest annual report on global political rights (participation in the political process, freedom to stand for office and to join parties etc) and civil liberties (freedom of expression, belief and association etc), only five OIC members and only one of any global significance —Indonesia — can be described as “free”. And even Indonesia has Suharto-era blasphemy laws.
So, what about freedom of the press? According to the most recent Press Freedom Index published annually by Reporters Without Borders, the OIC’s big players, Saudi Arabia (157th); Egypt (127th); UAE (87th) and Turkey (138th) are pretty tough environments for journalists.
What vision for entrenching religious freedom does the OIC leadership have? If, by defending “freedom of religion”, we mean protecting the individual’s right to practise a chosen religion, then many OIC states seemingly lack either the resources or the political will to apply this principle universally beyond the majority. It is more likely that the conservative governments of the OIC mean by “freedom of religion” the right to have their versions of state-sanctioned religion, namely Islam, unoffended and uncontested by impudent dissenters.
This is especially probable given that, although the “defamation” clause may have fallen out of the UN drafts early last year, the OIC’s “Ten-Year Programme of Action” from 2005 emphasises “the responsibility of the international community, including all governments, to ensure respect for all religions and combat their defamation”. Moreover, during the 2010 meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the OIC adopted a strategy to broaden support for its Resolution on “Combating Defamation of religions”. This illiberal cause, it appears, is still explicitly on the agenda and, right on cue, the nasty implications of this attitude are made flesh in the latest phase of the Rushdie affair. Yet again zealots feel entitled and empowered to unilaterally declare ideas off limits — and, worse, to respond to “offence” with a punch, bomb or lawsuit, rather than debate.
This is not a sinister appeal for European and American Muslims to stop whining and to thank God for relative mercies. The whole matter should be quite simple, in principle. As long as the individual is protected and permitted to participate fully in society, every single idea is up for endorsement and desecration. It does not take an atheist to say it and to think it is right.
But, then again, perhaps the OIC and the UN are well suited. A Human Rights Council that counts Mauritania and Saudi Arabia amongst its members finds a natural bedfellow in a group that displays no shame as the representatives of Sudan and Iran scold the world for its religious intolerance.
William Clowes was an intern at Index on Censorship before he became a researcher in the Security Unit at Policy Exchange. He is currently writing in a personal capacity and writes sometimes for Think Africa Press
8 Dec 2011 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features
UK’s Europe Minister David Liddington visits Human Rights House Viasna alongside Index on Censorship; Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore emphasizes NGO involvement
(more…)
