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New EOHR report: 'Violations still continuing: election campaigning during the Shura Council by-elections in violation of the principle of equal opportunity'
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6/6/2007
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) today issues its second report on its monitoring of the Shura Council by-elections under the title 'Violations still continuing: election campaigning during the Shura Council by-elections in violation of the principle of equal opportunity.' The report describes the violations monitored and documented by EOHR during the campaigning stage of the elections.
EOHR issued its first report, 'Shura Council by-elections: restrictions and transgressions' on the various violations it documented during its monitoring of the Shura Council elections. The most prominent of these violations was security departments' refusal to accept candidates' papers, security bodies interference preventing electoral candidates from nominating themselves for election, prevention of NGO monitors from entering places to present nomination papers and the distribution, by the Committee, of electoral symbols to party candidates according to the Committee's wishes. When clashes occur preference is given to the party accorded the symbol in the elections held in the last five years, the effect of which is to ensure a monopoly, by the ruling party, of the crescent and camel symbols.
The report is divided into three sections. The first section deals with election propaganda in light of international instruments and domestic laws. It contains all the international instruments which deal with nomination to elections and the organisation of this right. At the forefront of these instruments are the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Protocol no.1 of the International Covenant for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Law 73 on the Exercise of Political Rights [1956] amended by Law 173 [2005] and the conditions laid down by the Supreme Committee on electoral propaganda.
The second section describes the transgressions monitored by EOHR during the nomination stage of the Shura Council elections and which included delay in announcing the final candidates list, the arrest of some candidates and their supporters, destruction of some candidates' posters, banning of campaign processions, the cutting off of electricity to villages visited by election candidates and the use of government property. By way of example, EOHR describes some 18 violations of the rules governing election propaganda in a number of governorates. Gharbeyya witnessed most violations, with three, followed by Daqheleyya, Sharqeyya, Damietta, Fayyoum and Kafr el Sheikh in all of which two violations occurred. In Beni Suef, Menya, Assiut and Suez one violation occurred.
In pursuance of the right of all election candidates to put forward their election manifesto and views using all legal means, EOHR in the report's final section presents recommendations the most important of which are divesting legislation of all laws and provisions which criminalise the right and freedoms described in the Constitution and international human rights instruments ratified by Egypt and which have become part of domestic legislation. It also recommends amendment of Law 73 on the Exercise of Political Rights [1956] amended by Law 173 [2005] so as to incorporate EOHR's draft proposal on election propaganda, provision of equal opportunities to campaign to all candidates with regard to the use of state media facilities and an end to interference by state security bodies banning candidates. A legal provision must be drawn up giving the electoral committee the right to monitor election campaign spending, and all candidates must be subject to the scrutiny of the Central Accounts Body. All candidates must be obliged to present their records to the Supreme Committee on Elections together with details of all financial transactions connected with the election campaign accompanied by supporting documents. They must also present an account statement from the bank they use for the election campaign comprising all financial transactions carried out on this account. The Committee must be given the power to eliminate a candidate from the election where he exceeds the spending limit during the election campaign and annul his victory where he wins and compensate the candidate harmed by this infraction. All forms of collusion between state bodies and the National Democratic Party must be ended in order that Egypt is for all Egyptians and the right to belong to a party and the right of political activism is protected for all citizens: no one should be subject to persecution or discrimination on the basis of his political or trade union activity. The Penal Code must be amended in order to allow the possibility of raising a case directly against State employees who commit crimes during the election process and which compromise the probity of elections. Criminal cases involving these crimes. should not be rendered void by the passage of time.
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