In Your Face
Just when I thought I could free myself after a long post.... this comes along.... but I love it....
Where shall I start... Where shall I start....
Here or Here or Here ?!
OK... OK...
The meat: The Administrative Justice Court has accepted Kefaya's plea to deem false the election's referendum results based on a report compiled by judges who were heading the primary and secondary committees of the referendum.
The meat (in English): Due to the forging that took place in the May referendum results, and based on a verdict regarding a case against it scheduled to be issued on 3rd September, the whole circus-of-an-election could be a deemed invalid and be the biggest fucking joke in Egypt. I guess with that we would become the only country where April Fools Day comes in September.
The history: Ok lets take this from the beginning.....
The referendum
On 25th May a referendum was held to ask this question to the people:
"Do you agree to amend article 76 of the constitution and add a new amendment entitled article 192 based on the law parliament passed on 10 May 2005?"
with a choice of "Agree" or "Disagree". A majority of "Agree" would mean that the system of electing Egypt's president would change to allow multiple candidates to run against each - a first ever in Egypt's history. However, given (1)political apathy in Egypt and (2)the fact that almost all opposition parties and some members of the ruling party saw that the amendment made it almost impossible for opposition candidates to run and therefore called for a boycott of the referendum; the referendum results were forged.
Forging the referendum
How was it forged? (This is one time I wish I had finished translating the "Confessions of a Judge" post). Well. The way the referendum is run is that there are "primary committees" and "secondary committees" (Committee is a literal translation I'm sure there's a better word for it). The secondary committees are the actual polling stations with the ballot box and where you go and cast your "Agree" or "Disagree" vote. They should be headed by a judge. But almost all of them weren't. Primary committees are simply to preside over several "secondary committees". After the ballots have been cast, the heads of the secondary committees count the ballots and then go to the "primary committee" to report the results and hand in the ballots (I guess they hand in the ballots). Since the heads of the secondary committees were not presided over by judges, instead by humble state employees without any type of immunity, it was easy for the state authorities to threaten the employees by sacking them if a certain ratio of "Agree" to "Disagree" votes were not reported at the end of the ballot counting. In some cases a police officer would go to the polling station 15 minutes before the official end of the casting of ballots and close the committee early and overlook the forging of a few hundred "Agree" ballots and some "Disagree" ballots for show. The somewhat unorganized forging of the ballots and to a certain extent the stupidity of the employees allowed the forging to be easily exposed.
Judge's Honour
Right after the elections and for almost a month ahead, the Judges' Club received comments and complaints from the judges who were enlisted to head the primary committees and also from the very few who were presiding over secondary committees. The complaints and comments were compiled to form a detailed report regarding what happened in the referendum and what forgery had taken place. Some of the reports by the enlisted judges were even accompanied by pictures of "Agree" ballots bundled up in strings.
Kefaya takes the move
After the issueing of the report of the Judges' Club, the Kefaya (Enough) movement filed a lawsuit to the Administrative Justice Court to falsify the results of the referendum and deem them invalid based on the Judges' Club report.
The Case
In the first Court meeting for the case, the lawyers of the State Judicial Department (the government body representing the government in Court cases) argued that the Court should not accept the case on grounds that the case does not lie within the Court's jurisdiction. The Court refused the argument and accepted the case as fulfilling the initially required proceedings and lying withing the jurisdiction of the Court.
On the 22nd of August, the Court requested from the attorney to submit a copy of the original report sealed with the official stamp of the Judges' Club, since the attorney had submitted an unsealed copy.
On the 28th August, the attorney lawyers submitted the following documents:
1)A copy of the Alexandria Judges' Club report sealed with the official stamp of the Club.
2)A copy of the Club's magazine's next issue expected to be distributed on Friday the 2nd of September
3)The original report written in the hand writing of the vice-president of the Court of Cassation, Counsellor Hossam El Gheriany who also supervised the report.. as well as being sealed in the official stamp.
With this, the judge ordered the "reservation" of the case for a verdict on 3rd September.. thereby leaving no more room for pleas in the case and deciding to issue a verdict on 3rd of September.
LETS JUST HOPE THEY DON'T FIND SOME WAY TO WRIGGLE OUT OF THIS. I MEAN WHAT THE HELL ENOUGH ALREADY ITS LIKE A LAWLESS FARM OVER HERE.
Although I doubt it, I really hope this passes well and I feel so goddamn proud of those judges. For some reason I have this gut feeling that it won't pass well but I refuse to believe it. Actually I believe it... I just don't want to believe it. I want to believe that there is still something to be saved in this political system. I want to believe that.... Ahhh... Whatever... Anyway...
All information adapted from MisrAlArabia.com, Horrya Forum (Freedom Forum), AlMesryoon.com, and Kefaya's Forum. God bless the internet.
RELATED DEMONSTRATION AND CALENDAR NEWS: In a related matter, the Kefaya movement will hold a demonstration on Friday the 2nd of September in front of the Journalists' Syndicate at 11 am coinciding with the General Assembly of Egyptian Judges who will be discussing their position in the supervising of the election proceedings. Count me in baby. I will add both the demonstration as well as the Court verdict date to the calendar.
Where shall I start... Where shall I start....
Here or Here or Here ?!
OK... OK...
The meat: The Administrative Justice Court has accepted Kefaya's plea to deem false the election's referendum results based on a report compiled by judges who were heading the primary and secondary committees of the referendum.
The meat (in English): Due to the forging that took place in the May referendum results, and based on a verdict regarding a case against it scheduled to be issued on 3rd September, the whole circus-of-an-election could be a deemed invalid and be the biggest fucking joke in Egypt. I guess with that we would become the only country where April Fools Day comes in September.
The history: Ok lets take this from the beginning.....
The referendum
On 25th May a referendum was held to ask this question to the people:
"Do you agree to amend article 76 of the constitution and add a new amendment entitled article 192 based on the law parliament passed on 10 May 2005?"
with a choice of "Agree" or "Disagree". A majority of "Agree" would mean that the system of electing Egypt's president would change to allow multiple candidates to run against each - a first ever in Egypt's history. However, given (1)political apathy in Egypt and (2)the fact that almost all opposition parties and some members of the ruling party saw that the amendment made it almost impossible for opposition candidates to run and therefore called for a boycott of the referendum; the referendum results were forged.
Forging the referendum
How was it forged? (This is one time I wish I had finished translating the "Confessions of a Judge" post). Well. The way the referendum is run is that there are "primary committees" and "secondary committees" (Committee is a literal translation I'm sure there's a better word for it). The secondary committees are the actual polling stations with the ballot box and where you go and cast your "Agree" or "Disagree" vote. They should be headed by a judge. But almost all of them weren't. Primary committees are simply to preside over several "secondary committees". After the ballots have been cast, the heads of the secondary committees count the ballots and then go to the "primary committee" to report the results and hand in the ballots (I guess they hand in the ballots). Since the heads of the secondary committees were not presided over by judges, instead by humble state employees without any type of immunity, it was easy for the state authorities to threaten the employees by sacking them if a certain ratio of "Agree" to "Disagree" votes were not reported at the end of the ballot counting. In some cases a police officer would go to the polling station 15 minutes before the official end of the casting of ballots and close the committee early and overlook the forging of a few hundred "Agree" ballots and some "Disagree" ballots for show. The somewhat unorganized forging of the ballots and to a certain extent the stupidity of the employees allowed the forging to be easily exposed.
Judge's Honour
Right after the elections and for almost a month ahead, the Judges' Club received comments and complaints from the judges who were enlisted to head the primary committees and also from the very few who were presiding over secondary committees. The complaints and comments were compiled to form a detailed report regarding what happened in the referendum and what forgery had taken place. Some of the reports by the enlisted judges were even accompanied by pictures of "Agree" ballots bundled up in strings.
Kefaya takes the move
After the issueing of the report of the Judges' Club, the Kefaya (Enough) movement filed a lawsuit to the Administrative Justice Court to falsify the results of the referendum and deem them invalid based on the Judges' Club report.
The Case
In the first Court meeting for the case, the lawyers of the State Judicial Department (the government body representing the government in Court cases) argued that the Court should not accept the case on grounds that the case does not lie within the Court's jurisdiction. The Court refused the argument and accepted the case as fulfilling the initially required proceedings and lying withing the jurisdiction of the Court.
On the 22nd of August, the Court requested from the attorney to submit a copy of the original report sealed with the official stamp of the Judges' Club, since the attorney had submitted an unsealed copy.
On the 28th August, the attorney lawyers submitted the following documents:
1)A copy of the Alexandria Judges' Club report sealed with the official stamp of the Club.
2)A copy of the Club's magazine's next issue expected to be distributed on Friday the 2nd of September
3)The original report written in the hand writing of the vice-president of the Court of Cassation, Counsellor Hossam El Gheriany who also supervised the report.. as well as being sealed in the official stamp.
With this, the judge ordered the "reservation" of the case for a verdict on 3rd September.. thereby leaving no more room for pleas in the case and deciding to issue a verdict on 3rd of September.
LETS JUST HOPE THEY DON'T FIND SOME WAY TO WRIGGLE OUT OF THIS. I MEAN WHAT THE HELL ENOUGH ALREADY ITS LIKE A LAWLESS FARM OVER HERE.
Although I doubt it, I really hope this passes well and I feel so goddamn proud of those judges. For some reason I have this gut feeling that it won't pass well but I refuse to believe it. Actually I believe it... I just don't want to believe it. I want to believe that there is still something to be saved in this political system. I want to believe that.... Ahhh... Whatever... Anyway...
All information adapted from MisrAlArabia.com, Horrya Forum (Freedom Forum), AlMesryoon.com, and Kefaya's Forum. God bless the internet.
RELATED DEMONSTRATION AND CALENDAR NEWS: In a related matter, the Kefaya movement will hold a demonstration on Friday the 2nd of September in front of the Journalists' Syndicate at 11 am coinciding with the General Assembly of Egyptian Judges who will be discussing their position in the supervising of the election proceedings. Count me in baby. I will add both the demonstration as well as the Court verdict date to the calendar.
posted by wutever at 12:16 AM
2 Comments:
from kirazalan.net
The most important part of this quasi-election are the long-term consequences. Tarek Atia brilliantly notes that the election logo that has become “a permanent fixture on [national] channels… may change things. Intentional or not, the flag immediately attracts young children. “What is that?” they ask their parents. The typical response would probably be much like what Kamelia Hamed told her son when he asked, that the flag is part of the election campaign, which is a process by which the public chooses their leader from among several candidates.
In that simple exchange, a revolution of sorts has already occurred.
What I fear is that the "presidential elections" become another "fixed democracy show". If they start off this way (fraudulent and unbiased) then they will just be another event that happens every few years and noone bothers about because they all know its fixed any way. I'm pretty sure a similar exchange to the one you mentioned must have happened when it was decided that Egypt would have a president decided on by a popular vote of "Yes" or "No" as opposed to having a king. But where have we reached? Our popular votes are a sham.. you can go but what's the use if your vote won't count at least not in the middle of the bundles of fakes ones.. The problem mph isn't about the number of candidates... the problem is its all fake... The logo isn't something different.. not a revolution.. its the same game with a different name.. Don't forget that the upcoming elections are an exception since it will not have all the changes enforced on it... The elections after this next one will have the full "candidate requirements" added to it.. Requirements which would never have been fulfilled by the current candidates.. So I guess we're back to square one after the upcoming election.. It's the same "play".. It's nothing near a revolution.. It's a cosmetic change
Post a Comment
<< Home