CAIRO: Elections to Egypt's People's Assembly on Sunday 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. HRW
