By Ben Turner
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

CAIRO, Egypt – Egypt’s largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, announced that they will boycott the country’s April 8 elections after being allowed to field candidates in only 20 out of 52,000 contested council seats.

The Brotherhood says that 800 of its members have been arrested in recent weeks and thousands more have been intimidated in an organized crackdown to prevent them from registering as candidates.  The boycott will have little effect on the results of the election, with 90 percent of the seats certain to go to President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party.  But the boycott will reinforce the idea that the Egyptian government is refusing to allow any opposition groups from participating in the election process.

The Brotherhood said the government has ignored “thousands” of court rulings supporting the Brotherhood’s right to field candidates for local offices.  The Brotherhood accused the ruling National Democratic Party has instead obstructed the registration of opposition candidates.

“It is to the extent that we feel we are not competing with a normal party but with a group of corrupt people who are willing to even resort to illegal and unethical means,” the group’s statement said. “The party of corruption and despotism is afraid of any contest.”

The Brotherhood is an Islamic political party.  The Egyptian constitution bans political parties based on religion and all of the group’s members run officially as independents.  While the group is officially banned, it is widely tolerated in the country.

The Brotherhood says it wants to promote peaceful and democratic reform to bring about an Islamic state and tackle corruption. But critics say it cannot be trusted and hint that its violent past has never been renounced.

Egypt’s election is being set against the backdrop of an economic crisis across the country.  Inflation has skyrocketed as the price of bread, rice and cooking oil have all nearly doubled since the beginning of the year.  All three products are staples of Egyptian cooking and the rising prices have left many Egyptians struggling as the wages have not kept pace with inflation.

The United States and international human rights groups have criticized the Egyptian government’s crackdown on the Brotherhood but Washington has exerted little pressure for reform on Mubarak, one its staunchest allies in the Middle East.

“We always encourage countries in the region and around the world to do everything that they possibly can. And is there more to do? Absolutely. There’s more to do in Egypt,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. “But fundamentally, they’re going to have to arrive at their own decisions about the pace and the direction of this reform.”

For more information, please see:
Guardian – Muslim Brotherhood to Boycott Election – 8 April 2008

Wall Street Journal – Opposition Party in Egypt Plans to Boycott Municipal Elections – 8 April 2008

AFP – Clashes Erupt Anew in Egypt Strike City – 7 April 2008

Associated Press – Police, Protesters Clash in North Egypt – 7 April 2008

BBC – Egypt Opposition Boycotts Polls – 7 April 2008

International Herald Tribune – Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Opposition Group Urges Boycott of Municipal Elections – 7 April 2008

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A group of 42 male university students abducted near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul have been freed, just few hours after their kidnapping. Another bus carrying female students had managed to escape, but three passengers were injured by gunfire.

The buses were taking the students to Mosul University, where classes were due to restart after a weekend break. The kidnappers had stopped the buses near an area called Jorum, on a highway near Mosul. The bus carrying female students fled, but the bus carrying male students were unable to escape. The captured male students were loaded into a trailer and were taken to the village of al-Jarradi, where they were eventually freed.

No group has claimed responsibility, but many speculate Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia to be responsible for the kidnapping. Al Qaeda has regrouped in the Northern Province after having been pushed out of western AnBar Province and Baghdad. The U.S. military says Mosul is Al Qaeda’s last major urban stronghold in the country.

Mosul police believes the kidnapping was a result of mistaken identity. The police said the kidnappers probably thought the male students to be policemen or police recruits. But when the kidnappers found out the hostages were students, they let the students go.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Abducted Iraqi students are freed – 6 April 2008

International Herald Tribune – 42 university students abducted in Iraq – 6 April 2008

Al Jazeera – Abducted Iraqi students freed – 6 April 2008

The Associated Press – Gunmen seize 42 college students – 6 April 2008

By Laura Zuber
Impunity Watch Senior Desk Officer, Middle East

CAIRO, Egypt – Egypt’s Interior Minister declared that government “agencies will take the necessary and immediate firm measures against any attempt to demonstrate, block traffic, or hinder public services – or inciting any of these acts.”  Also, state-owned daily Al-Ahram warned that individuals inciting or participating in the strike could face prison.

Egypt’s largest state-owned textile factory, Mahalla al-Kobra, called for its workers to strike on April 6 to protest against low wages and increasing food prices.  A call for a general strike has been circulating for a week via the internet and cell phones.  For example, a group on the social network site Facebook, “April 6”, has attracted over 64,000 members.

Strike organizers urge people to stay home from work, avoid shopping, wear black clothes and hang the Egyptian flag from windows and balconies in a show of support for the strikers.

UN’s World Food Programme said that the average household expenditure has risen by 50 percent since the start of the year.  The price of food in Egypt has sky-rocketed since the start of the year.  As food prices increased, so has popular discontent.  Since the strike was announced last week, President Mubarak has lifted taxes on some foodstuffs in an effort to soften economic affects of the price increase.

The Interior Ministry stated that the government was not trying to prevent freedom of expression, but that “such actions must come through legitimate channels and the qualified unions and professional associations according to the law.”  Under Egypt’s emergency law, strikes and public demonstrations are illegal.

For more information, please see:
AFP – Egypt Rails Against General Strike Call – 5 April 2008

Al Jazeera – Egypt Issues Strike Warning – 5 April 2008

International Herald Tribune – Egypt’s Interior Ministry Warns Against Participating in a General Strike – 5 April 2008

AHN – Egyptian Opposition Groups Call for Sunday Strike – 3 April 2008

By Ben Turner
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East Desk

RIYDAH, Saudia Arabia – A group of over 100 Arab rights groups and intellectuals condemned a Saudi religious edict calling for the death of two newspaper columnists, saying the fatwa was the result of “clerics of darkness” performing intellectual terrorism.

“All we can see in this fatwa is intellectual terrorism which sees ‘Islam’ as its exclusive monopoly and only sees in the ‘other’ blood which can be shed freely,” said the statement sent out by the rights groups.  The statement also said that religious scholars who branded other Muslims as infidels were “clerics of darkness, fooled through their arrogance and inflated by their status into thinking that they speak in the name of God.”

Sheikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak, one of Saudi Arabia’s most revered clerics, said in a rare religious ruling in March that two newspaper columnists should be put to death unless they renounced their “heretical articles” in public.

“Anyone who claims this has refuted Islam and should be tried so that he can take it back. If not, he should be killed as an apostate from the religion of Islam,” Barrak said. “It is disgraceful that articles [of] this kind of apostasy should be published in … the land of [Mecca and Medina].”

Writing in al-Riyadh newspaper, Yousef Aba Al-Khail and Abdullah bin Bejad questioned the Sunni Muslim view in Saudi Arabia that Christians and Jews should be considered unbelievers.  Barrak, who was backed by a group of 20 Saudi clerics, said their statement implied that Muslims were free to follow other religions. None of the clerics speak for the Saudi government, which is represented by the Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Al al-Sheikh.

Barrak is seen as one of Saudi Arabia’s leading religious authorities and his fatwa, or religious ruling, was praised by clerics who asked God to support him in the face of liberals with “polluted beliefs.”  Fatwas by radical Muslim clerics led to the assassination in 1992 of the Egyptian writer Farag Foda and to an attempt in 1994 in Cairo to murder the Egyptian Nobel prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz.

“We are extremely worried about the safety of our colleagues and ask the Saudi government to ensure their safety,” Committee to Protect Journalists Executive Director Joel Simon said. “It is ironic that writers advocating tolerance and reform are subject to incitement and death threats.”

For more information, please see:
Washington Post – A Hint of Tolerance – 4 April 2008

Guardian – Intellectuals Condemn Fatwa Against Writers – 3 April 2008

New York Times – Saudi Ruling Assailed – 2 April 2008

Reuters – Arab Rights Groups, Figures Slam Saudi Death Fatwa – 1 April 2008

Arab News – Of Fatwas and Infidels – 27 March 2008

CPJ – Saudi Cleric Issues Fatwa Against Two Journalists – 20 March 2008

CAIRO, Egypt – Al Qaeda’s media arm, al Sahab, announced last December that Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s ideological chief and second-in-command, would answer questions submitted by the public on various websites.  In a 103-minute video Zawahiri addressed issues ranging from Palestine, opportunities for female militants and Osama bin Laden’s health.  This video was billed as the first installment of Zawahiri’s responses to the over 900 questions submitted.

One question related to al Qaeda’s suicide attacks on UN offices in Algiers on December 11, which at least 41 people died, including 18 UN employees.  The attacks on the United Nations office and the Constitutional Council building were claimed by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

An Algerian medical student wrote, “I want al-Zawahiri to answer me about those who kill the people in Algeria. What is the legal evidence for killing the innocents?”  Zawahiri responded that the people killed were not innocents.  Rather, according to al Qaeda, “they are from the Crusader unbelievers and the government troops who defend them.”  He defended the attacks by stating the one of the targets, a UN building, was a legitimate target because the UN is “an enemy of Islam and Muslims.”

In addition, Zawahiri denied that the group was responsible for killing innocent people and stated, “If there is any innocent who was killed in the mujahedin’s operations, then it was either an unintentional error or out of necessity.”  Instead, Zawahiri claimed that al Qaeda’s enemies of intentionally taking positions amongst innocent people and using them as human shields.

For more information, please see:
Al Jazeera – Al-Qaeda Deputy: UN Enemy of Islam – 3 April 2008

Bloomberg – Zawahiri Defends Al-Qaeda that Kill Muslims – 3 April 2008

CCN – Al Qaeda No. 2: We Don’t Kill Innocents – 3 April 2008

Los Angeles Times – Bin Laden’s Deputy Fields Queries – 3 April 2008

BBC – Al-Qaeda Deputy Defends Attacks – 2 April 2008