COUNTRIES AT THE CROSSROADS GOVERNANCE BLOG

Reform Lite Comes to Saudi Justice

On January 11, Saudia Arabia’s Shura Council approved the establishment of a public defender program that will appoint lawyers to indigent defendants at the state’s expense. This reform measure follows on the heels of a series of recent efforts geared towards advancing judicial reform through restructuring judicial institutions and introducting new programs and initiatives aimed at professionalizing the judicial sector. In February 2009, King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz passed amendments that appointed a new, less conservative chief of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) and formed a Supreme Court composed of nine heads of courts of appeals. Nevertheless, these reform efforts, while welcome, will not bring about the change necessary to uproot a judicial culture that systematically denies defendants’ rights due to its dependence on the arbitrary decision-making power of judges and high level government officials.

The kingdom’s efforts have been carried out as part of a judicial reform process announced by the government in October 2007 that sought to streamline and restructure the country’s ailing judicial system through a series of measures set out in 2007 amendments to the Law of the Judiciary and the Law of the Board of Grievances. These amendments set up specialized labor and commercial courts. They also moved to increase judicial independence by shifting the highest legal powers from the widely-disparaged SJC to a Supreme Court with the power to hear appeals and transferring the administrative authority to oversee the courts, judicial appointments, and matters of discipline and training from the Ministry for Justice to the SJC. A provision of the law granting the executive the power to interfere in the judiciary was also rescinded.  At this time, the government committed US$1.8 billion to build the specialized courts and implement training programs for the new court’s judicial officers.

This reform plan, while welcome, must be viewed in concert with the persistent injustices that plague the Saudi judiciary. Within the criminal justice system, defendants’ rights are consistently and systematically denied as a result of both deficiencies in Saudi law and the excessive power granted to Saudi judges. Extended pretrial detention is common, and defendants are frequently denied access to a lawyer and left in the dark about the charges against them. This is especially the case for Saudis detained on terrorism or political charges, who numbered 2,000 in 2009. Trial procedures are also severely flawed. Defendants do not enjoy the presumption of innocence and are often prevented from presenting evidence, while lawyers are occasionally barred from defending their clients in court.  Most alarmingly, Saudi Arabia lacks a penal code, which enables judges to determine criminality based on their own discretion, often in an inconsistent manner that is especially alarming considering the severe punishments that can accompany crimes. Saudi justice is predominantly based on a particularly strict interpretation of Sharia law, which provides for extreme punishments such as flogging, in addition to a body of “Basic Law,” which is subordinate to the authority of the king and the religious establishment.  Death sentences can be handed down by judges in cases involving rape, murder, offenses against God, and also those cases that the judge, in his own opinion, believes merit capital punishment. Meanwhile, members of the royal family enjoy almost complete impunity in both civil and criminal courts.

Given the incompatibility of the Saudi judicial framework with most international conceptions of due process protections, a systemic overhaul including codification of criminal law and the training of a new generation of judges would need to take place before the Saudi judicial system can truly be considered reformed. Technocratic changes are undoubtedly a salutary first step, but while new courts and training programs may serve to reduce judicial backlogs and modernize the system, they will fail to achieve real change if the prevailing judicial culture remains the same. Furthermore, the reform efforts focus only on civil courts, leaving the realm of criminal law, which is most in need of reform, untouched. The establishment of a public defender program will do slightly more to uphold the rule of law by safeguarding the rights of defendants. However, even if defendants now enjoy the right to be provided with a lawyer if unable to pay, this provides little guarantee that they will be granted a fair trial in a system where the personal opinions of the judges and the king prevail over codified, standardized justice. The new reforms will not deny the king his ability to influence and interfere in high-profile cases; he will also retain his authority to appoint the heads of the SJC and the Supreme Court, along with his power to reject the SJC’s recommendations for judicial appointments. Most importantly, he will remain the highest judicial authority in the land.

In some countries, technocratic reforms-often undertaken with donor assistance-mark an important first step, particularly when resources are extremely scarce or conflict has left judicial institutions in chaos. However, neither of these conditions applies to Saudi Arabia. Likewise, without political will to implement far-reaching changes, judicial reform often flounders or reaches a maximum level well below what’s necessary to achieve equality before the law. There is little indication that the necessary political will exists in Saudi Arabia to bring about such comprehensive change. Indeed, the fact that the implementation of even technocratic reforms efforts, which have been announced several times since 2005, has lagged serves as evidence that deeper shifts remain in the distant future. Finally, in societies like Saudi Arabia with more entrenched judicial norms, transforming judicial culture is a wrenching process. For now, average Saudi citizens and others caught up in the country’s judicial net can only hope that, however slowly, the wheels of reform in the kingdom are finally beginning to turn.

The Death Penalty in China and Iran: A Mockery of Justice

Photo credit: Flickr user kattebelletje

As the world marked World Day Against the Death Penalty this weekend, Iranian officials announced that three protesters arrested in the country’s post-election crackdown have been sentenced to death. The verdicts were announced despite widespread international outcry over the sentencing of another protester, Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani, to death last week. Saturday’s announcement came the same day that Iran, in blatant violation of international law, hanged a man who was 17 when he committed a murder. 

With a tally of at least 346 executions in 2008, Iran carried out more executions than any other country in the world besides China. Eight of these were juvenile offenders, according to Amnesty International, making Iran the only country in the world in which juvenile offenders were known to be executed (the United States, which occupied fifth place in the number of executions carried out in 2008, abolished the death penalty for juveniles in 2005). Meanwhile, China, the globe’s “first place” executioner with least 1,718 in 2008, sentenced six men to death on Monday for murder, arson, and robbery during the July 2009 ethnic riots in Xinjiang. In both of these countries, exact figures of the number of executions are not publicly available.

Although both countries log significantly higher-than-average capital punishment figures, governmental attitudes toward and application of the death penalty in the two countries differ notably.

Cloaked in a language of morality, capital punishment in Iran is used by the government to prevent threats to the legitimacy of the country’s religion-based political system. In other words, the government conflates threats to the religious order with threats to the political order. Under Islamic law as applied in the country, a gamut of crimes is punishable by death.  Homicide, rape, incest, homosexuality, adultery, and prostitution are capital offenses. Execution sentences are sometimes given out for drug-related crimes. The protesters sentenced to death last week were charged with mohareb, or “taking up arms against God.” 

According to Amnesty International, a 2008 law widened the scope of capital crime in Iran to include pornography, and officials were proposing laws to include apostasy, heresy and witchcraft, as well as internet crimes that “promote corruption and apostasy” on the list of capital offenses.

In the case of murder, the family of the victim determines whether the person who committed the murder will face death or pay compensation – literally “blood money” – to the family. This allows the state to take a hands-off approach in determining the fate of those convicted of murder. In the case of Behnoud Shojaie, the young man who was executed this week for a murder he committed at age 17, the state responded to cries from the United Nations by noting that Iranian officials were “doing their utmost” to get the victim’s family to accept the blood money. Though Navi Pillay, the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights, said that the organization welcomes attempts to mediate between the family of the victim and the person convicted of the murder, such actions were “utterly insufficient” in satisfying Iran’s international law commitments.

In China, capital punishment is a way of combating disruptions of social and political, rather than moral, order. Its Communist secular law provides for perhaps an even wider range of capital offenses. Homicide, rape, and kidnapping are all punishable by death, as are non-violent crimes such financial fraud, smuggling weapons and precious metals, and counterfeiting currency. Unlike Iran, China prohibits the execution of a person who committed his or her crime before the age of 18. The widespread utilization of capital punishment in China is the continuation of the “strike hard” campaigns used to suppress criminality following the breakdown of social order during the Cultural Revolution. As discussed in the 2007 Countries at the Crossroads report, these campaigns are characterized by the rounding up and severe punishing of large numbers of people, especially young people, often through mass trials and executions.

Despite these differences, the justice systems are similar in failing to provide fair trials for those charged with capital crimes. These countries apply the rule of law unevenly. The Iranian court system is pervasively politicized. There is limited adherence to constitutional guarantees including freedom from arbitrary arrest, the right of access to competent courts, and the right to select an attorney or be provided with legal counsel. Lawyers who defend criminals accused of political crimes are at risk of finding themselves accused of acting against national security.

In China, the judiciary has almost no independence or autonomy from the Chinese Communist Party, and all courts are answerable to the National People’s Congress. Judicial officials are poorly trained. Suspects are not presumed innocent until proven guilty and many confessions are extracted through torture. As in Iran, defense lawyers are often treated as accomplices to suspects.

Barring any extreme political development, it is unlikely that these countries’ judicial systems will undergo significant reform or that the application of the death penalty will be narrowed. This raises concerns for both future and immediate developments. Though death sentences in Iran may be appealed to the Supreme Court, the recent protest-related convictions evoked fears about the fates of other protesters held in prison after this summer’s post-election crackdown. Apparently 18 other protesters received sentences last week, though these sentences have not yet been made public. According to the Guardian, there were more than 4,000 people arrested for their involvement in this summer’s protests, about 200 of whom are still imprisoned. Last week, Amnesty International called for Iran to lift the death penalty on Zamani, labeling the prosecution a “show trial” and a “mockery of justice.”

Given the eminently political nature of these sentences, and the tense political climate in Tehran following June’s elections, the Iranian government may be courting a public backlash. This is unlikely in China, as the public, scarred by memories of the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, generally supports harsh measures to keep social order under control. In the end, it is probably impossible to know if such common use of the death penalty functions as the authorities intend, as a deterrent to both crime and challenges to the established order. It is clear, however, that the shadowy process that leads to the firing squad or gallows in each country symbolizes the meagerness of individual rights in these authoritarian states.

Northern Africa's Plodding Progress on Women's Rights

Photo: Women's rights activist speaking at the 2005 International Conference of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association in Cairo, Egypt; Photo Credit: Flickr user cactusbones

Despite the enormously improved legal provisions for women’s rights in Morocco that resulted from the 2004 Moroccan Family Law, the lag time between passage and implementation has disappointed Moroccan women. In a recent article, the Inter Press Service reported that the law has yet to resolve the country’s difficult environment for women’s rights. A July report from the Moroccan Association for Human Rights noted a strong “perseverance of segregation and violence against women,” especially within the family. When Amnesty International Secretary-General Irene Khan visited Morocco in March, she condemned the persistence of violence, stating, “King Mohamed VI’s government must now consolidate…progress by criminalizing violence against women.” Also troubling is the recent finding that the Family Law has resulted in a rise the number of marriages to minor girls, especially in rural areas. Although the 2004 law raised the legal age for marriage from 15 to 18, a loophole states that a judge can grant an exception to this rule. Family court judges received 39,000 requests for marriages to minors in 2007, 68% of which were approved. The law has also failed to curb polygamy, despite the fact that it imposed strict conditions on the practice.

Many women’s rights activists have argued that the law has been loosely enforced due to family judges’ unwillingness to implement a code that stands to fundamentally challenge the traditional patriarchal structure of Morocco’s Muslim society. Indeed, Rabia Naciri, president of the Democratic Association of Moroccan Women, claims that “Moroccan politicians have argued that the law is not applied because society is not ready for it.” Thus, the widespread view that Morocco has joined Tunisia as a regional exemplar for women’s rights may be premature. Indeed, the law serves as a case study on how deeply ingrained views about an issue—in this case, women’s subordinate role in society—can result in both the persistence of traditional injustices at home and half-hearted implementation of the laws that attempt change.

That said, it is beyond dispute that the new Family Law has expanded women’s rights and rectified several of the injustices formerly present in the Moroccan legal system. The law secured each woman’s right to self-guardianship, divorce, and child custody, and imposed a set of punishments for sexual harassment. In many cases, the formal enshrinement of these rights has served to empower Moroccan women and compel them to exercise their new rights in courts, or at least to make them aware of their right to do so.

In addition to bringing about change within the country, this law has served as an inspiration and model for the women’s rights movement in other North African countries. Indeed, family law reform was soon carried out in several of Morocco’s neighbors. For example, Algeria amended its family code in 2005, in large part due to the advocacy efforts of women’s rights organizations similar to those functioning in Morocco. Notably, the amendments expanded the rights of Algerian women by allowing them to seek divorce and vastly increased the protections afforded them when undergoing this process. The law grants women custody over children in most cases and requires the ex-husband to provide housing for his ex-wife and children. In addition, the law now allows women to transmit citizenship and nationality to her children and spouse.  Furthermore, Egypt granted women the right to a no-contest divorce in 2005. Finally, in Tunisia, which is widely considered to be one of the most progressive Arab countries where women’s rights are concerned, has also adopted a few additional reforms in recent years. For example, in 2008, a new amendment to the country’s already favorable family code granted divorced women with custody the right to be provided housing. These reforms were carried out for the most part due to the increased advocacy efforts of women’s rights organizations.

Nevertheless, as is the case in Morocco, a resilient current against change remains prominent in spite of the promulgation of these laws. Enforcement remains the most serious problem facing the women’s rights movement in North Africa. In some cases, this is due to the fact that both women and men living in rural regions are unaware of the laws’ existence. In other cases, the law is not implemented due to the resistance of judges. This is largely due to the widespread opinion in Islamic fundamentalist circles that Shariah law, and particularly marriage, is being attacked by the women’s rights movement. As a consequence, measurable change has been difficult to achieve. In Algeria, despite the promulgation of the new housing law, divorced women continue to wind up on the streets, or, if they are provided housing, are often forced to live in slums. Men have found ways to circumvent the laws, while judges have often sided with them in court. This situation is predominantly the result of the persistence of traditional societal values and views on women’s role in society. Although women may theoretically have the right to seek a divorce in these countries, for example, the stigma against it remains strong, which deters women, their husbands, and legal officials from implementing the law. As Leila Rhiwi, the women’s rights coordinator for the Maghreb for the UN Development Fund for Women states, “What we have seen is a change in the law, not a change in society.” 

Furthermore, although recent laws and amendments have advanced women’s rights, further legal reform will be essential in order to fully address the trials and tribulations women in the region continue to face. In all of the cases noted above, family law codes continue to contain discriminatory provisions, while recent reforms have themselves sometimes contained questionable caveats. For example, as the 2009 Freedom in the World Report on Algeria notes, women still suffer from unequal rights in marriage, divorce, and inheritance. Egypt’s 2005 law granting the right to a no-contest divorce also states that women may lose their dowry if they choose to exercise this right. Unfortunately, the resistance to change is not only prevalent on a micro-level, but often plays itself out at the upper echelons of government. While Moroccan King Mohamed VI has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to promote women’s rights, most notably through spearheading the movement to reform the family code, this strong political will is absent in some of the country’s neighbors. Alarmingly, following the passage of the 2005 family code amendments, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika told women’s rights activists, “You have obtained vested rights today. Do not demand more.”

The recent strides to advance women’s rights in Northern Africa through legal reform should certainly be applauded. As Leila Rhiwi notes, “changes in law allow for changes to occur in society.” In all of the above cases, it will take several years to convince the countries’ traditional Muslim societies of the compatibility of women’s rights with Shariah law, and consequently to bring about real change. The Tunisian case is illustrative. Since the 1956 personal status code was promulgated, the country has been engaged in a difficult battle to ensure that women are entitled to equal treatment.  Encouragingly, however, the country’s quest has yielded successful results. In fact, a 2007 World Economic Forum index ranked women’s status in Tunisia as the second highest in the Arab world. Thus, while the road to comprehensive women’s rights reform in Northern Africa will be long, it is not likely to meet a dead end as long as both local and international activists keep the movement on track.

Updates Post: Jordan, Tunisia, Mauritania, Honduras, Venezuela

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On July 15, Jordan’s Upper House of Parliament passed several amendments to the controversial civil society law signed by King Abdullah II in December 2008. While civil society groups had hoped that Jordan would take advantage of this opportunity to address the widespread international and national criticism of the restrictive 2008 laws and adopt some of the revisions recommended by civil society groups, this did not come to pass. The approved amendments fail to revoke the 2008 law’s provisions that grant the executive branch extensive control over the registration and activities of the country’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs).  NGO registration will continue to depend on an opaque approval process rather than an administrative notification procedure. In addition, executive authorities will retain their ability to monitor NGO activities by directly appointing NGO delegates to General Assembly meetings, controlling some personnel appointments, and reviewing annual activity plans. Furthermore, the new version of the law strictly regulates financing by prohibiting NGOs from receiving foreign funds without approval by the Council of Ministers. Finally, as was the case in the 2008 law, NGOs will be prohibited from pursuing political objectives and carrying out activities that threaten social order.  In response to the House’s decision, civil society groups lamented Jordan’s failure to eliminate excessive government interference in the NGO sector, which is considered by some to be one of the country’s major obstacles to democratic reform. Last July, we blogged on freedom of association in Jordan following the initial introduction of the two draft NGO laws to the Jordanian parliament.  Both the passage of the law last year and the recent failure of the government to ease its clampdown on the sector are unfortunate, considering the country’s continued rhetorical commitment to deepening liberalization.

Tunisia has also witnessed discouraging recent developments. Specifically, the run-up to the October presidential and parliamentary elections has been fraught with violence. In the past few months, opposition members, journalists, and human rights defenders alike have been the victims of physical attacks. Criticism of the government of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who is seeking a fifth term in office, has been met with increased repression by state security officials. Furthermore, the campaign activities of the opposition have been severely restricted. Opposition papers including Al Mawkif, Mouatinoun, and Attarik El Jedid have been repeatedly harassed, which has caused their distribution to be disrupted. This aggressive assault against the opposition is being carried out despite the fact that President Ben Ali‘s victory in the election, along with the dominance of the ruling Constitutional Democratic Rally Party (RCD) in the parliamentary elections, is basically predetermined. As the 2007 Countries at the Crossroads report notes, there is no real opportunity for rotation of power in the country. This is largely the result of the country’s winner-take-all system, which provides the RCD with strong advantages given the country’s past experience of single-party rule. Last November, we blogged on Tunisia’s poor prospects for reform, especially in the realm of electoral politics, calling attention to the gap between the government’s rhetoric, which supports democracy and human rights, and the reality of Tunisia’s political and social situation, which is characterized by oppressive laws and practices that restrict free expression and generally thwart democratic advancement. Although Ben Ali has continued to employ democratic rhetoric by making promises that the run-up to the election will be open and competitive and followed his words with deeds by working with the National Observatory of Presidential and Legislative Elections to ensure that “neutrality, transparency, and independence” is observed, the credibility of the process remains tenuous at best when observed alongside its offensive against the opposition.

In the nearby nation of Mauritania, the latest developments are more complicated. On July 18, General Muhammad Ould Abdel Aziz, head of the junta that gained power in Mauritania following a military coup in August 2008, won the country’s presidential election. General Abdel Aziz defeated his main opponent, Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, the former speaker of the parliament who had vehemently opposed the coup, with 53% of the vote. While the holding of elections would normally be considered a positive development, especially in light of Mauritania’s recent history of military rule and political uncertainty, the circumstances surrounding these elections cast doubt upon the degree of democratic advancement they represent. The fact that General Abdel Aziz, who ousted the country’s first-ever democratically elected president from power last year after already being involved in two prior coups, included his name on the election ballot, raised eyebrows. In addition, several of Abdel Aziz’s opponents have called the election a charade. They have specifically claimed that there were too few observers, although international actors such as the African Union, along with several diplomats, have disagreed.  Following last year’s coup, we blogged on the country’s major democratic setback, along with its history of coups and excessive military involvement in the country’s political affairs. At that time, we noted that the Mauritanian military had yet again shown its unwillingness to relinquish its dominant role in the country’s politics, reflecting a longstanding tradition of weak civilian control over the military. General Abdel Aziz’s refusal to bar junta members from competing in the recent elections, and his successful attempt to fill the presidential shoes himself, are yet another example. Also troubling is Abdel Aziz’s governance record over the past year. As the 2009 Freedom in the World report on Mauritania notes, the Abdel Aziz-led junta imposed restrictions on press freedom along with other basic civil rights. Thus, if past record is a good indication of his future performance Mauritania’s prospects for democratic progress will remain questionable.

Finally, in several Latin American countries, press freedom has taken a major hit. The press environment in Honduras and Venezuela has become especially restrictive. In Honduras, television and radio stations were completely shut down immediately following the June 28 military coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya from the presidency. Since this time, a selective news blackout has been continuously imposed, with media regarded as critical of de-facto President Roberto Micheletti’s government being obstructed and censored. Reporters without Borders has reported that the broadcasts of eight radio and TV stations have been periodically interrupted during the past month, oftentimes following coverage of pro-Zelaya material. On the contrary, media outlets supportive of the de-facto government have escaped persecution. Furthermore, local broadcasting of international TV stations including Telesur and CNN has been stopped. In early April, we blogged on Honduran media freedom as part of a post on Central-American government-media relations. At the time, we noted that the Honduran media tended to be quite critical of President Zelaya, which was unusual considering the fact that the country’s political and media elite were historically one and the same. This reflected a more ominous situation than most observers realized at the time. The powerful anti-Zelaya media sector has undoubtedly facilitated the coup-leaders’ agenda, especially in the beginning, when several outlets immediately echoed their statements that a coup had not occurred. In the current political environment, these outlets have come to largely dominate the Honduran media landscape, while the few pro-Zelaya outlets have been forced into silence. This is yet another reason that the government installed by the coup, which has been widely denounced by international bodies including the UN and the OAS, deserves not a sliver of legitimacy when compared to the democratically elected Zelaya government.

In June, we blogged on President Hugo Chavez’s assault on the media, and especially his battle with the rabidly anti-government channel Globovision.  Throughout July, the Venezuelan government continued its campaign against opposition media by shutting down 34 radio stations due to alleged violations, while also opening an additional procedure against Globovision, this time for airing an advertising campaign that used the image of an unclothed, pregnant woman in the name of defending private property. In addition, on August 3, 30 pro-government militants reinforced the offensive against Globovision by storming the organization’s headquarters. This act was apparently a bridge too far: the leader of the militants, well-known activist Lina Ron, was arrested and charged with a number of crimes. However condemnable Ms. Ron’s acts, it bears noting that she has a good reason to feel cognitive dissonance: the fever pitch of anti-Globovision rhetoric expressed by President Chavez and his top allies undoubtedly encouraged supporters like herself, who consider themselves the vanguard of the Bolivarian movement, to carry out such actions. This all comes in the context of the ill-fated draft “media crimes bill” that would have imposed jail sentences for a variety of ambiguous “media offenses.” Much like 2008’s notorious intelligence bill, however, the swift and fierce international outcry by everyone from the UN press rapporteur to pro-Chavez websites caused legislators to bury the legislation. Nonetheless, relations between Chavez and against critical media show no signs of achieving equilibrium anytime soon, and many outlets continue to wait for the next step in what seems to be a permanent offensive. 

Egypt and the Death Penalty: Recipe for Injustice?

Photo Credit: Flick user cbonney

In mid-June, human rights organizations reported that 209 death sentences had been handed down in Egypt since January of this year. Later that month, an article in Egypt’s Al Dustour daily newspaper reported that this number had increased to 230, with 50 sentences being handed down during the week of June 14 alone. While the death sentence is by no means a rare recourse in Egypt’s judicial system, this soaring number of death sentences is unparalleled in Egypt’s history. According to local experts, the surge has been brought about by the country’s skyrocketing violent crime rates. Egypt’s increasingly dire economic situation has brought about a spike in unemployment and poverty, which has in turn fueled a rise in despair-driven crime. This situation has been exacerbated by general dissatisfaction with government institutions, especially the judicial system.  In recent months, the violence has spiraled out of control. As journalist Khairy Ramadan explained, “The danger is everywhere, and killing has been taking place lately for the most trivial reasons…killing has become a daily routine.” In light of this situation, the rise in death sentences is widely perceived as the government’s attempt to deter further crime.

While capital punishment is a hotly contested issue in all corners of the globe, it is hardly controversial to assert that the grave nature of such a penalty requires that strong due process protections be put in place to ensure that no innocent person is ever executed. However, this question is highly contentious in Egypt due to serious deficiencies in the country’s judicial system. Although the number of death sentences that have been recently handed down is itself enough to raise the concern of human rights defenders, the unjust process through which verdicts are found creates yet greater reason for alarm. As the 2007 Countries at the Crossroads Report on Egypt notes, Egypt has consistently failed to observe citizens’ due process rights, despite the fact that these rights are formally enshrined in the constitution. This is largely a result of Egypt’s decades-old state of emergency, which the parliament extended for an additional 2 year period in May 2008. The emergency laws effectively suspend basic legal rights by permitting indefinite pre-trial detention without charge or trial and rescinding fair trial guarantees. According to the State Department’s 2008 Human Rights Report, several Egyptian detainees alleged that they were either completely denied access to counsel or were only granted access at the time of trial over the course of the past year. In addition, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has noted that confessions obtained under duress continue to be accepted in court.

While rights are oftentimes violated in cases tried in civil courts, the situation is far worse in the country’s military court system, a parallel judicial system created by emergency legislation. Emergency laws grant Egypt the right to try civilians who have committed national security crimes such as terrorism in military courts. In addition, a 2007 amendment provides the state with the authority to refer defendants to any judicial body authorized by the law, which has allowed Egypt to violate its citizens’ right to equality before the law by referring civil rights activists, political dissidents, feminists, and homosexuals to military courts. These trials are grossly unfair in a wide variety of ways. By trying civilians for non-military crimes in military tribunals, denying defendants access to lawyers during the pre-trial period, extracting evidence through the use of torture, and banning trial observers from attending military trials, Egypt has repeatedly violated its citizens’ right to “a public hearing by competent, independent, and impartial tribunal established by the law.” Last year’s high-profile conviction of leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood is particularly illustrative of the unjust nature of the military courts. In February 2007, President Hosni Mubarak transferred these men’s cases, along with 23 others, to a military tribunal after a civilian criminal court had initially acquitted them. Unsurprisingly, 25 men, 7 of them in absentia, were sentenced to prison terms of up to 10 years by the military tribunal.

Most alarmingly, the punishment that accompanies these unjust verdicts is oftentimes quite extreme considering the nature of the crime. In Egypt, the death sentence is not restricted to the most violent crimes. On the contrary, it can be handed down as a punishment for 90 different crimes according to Egyptian law. In addition to premeditated murder, these crimes include rape, kidnapping, terrorism, and espionage, along with such lesser crimes as drug-related offenses and various “political crimes.” Due to the fact that many of these offenses, most notably acts of terrorism and “political offenses,” can be tried in the notoriously unfair military court system, the recent spike in death sentences is especially ominous.

In order for this grave situation to be addressed, Egypt’s state of emergency must be revoked. Unfortunately, the recent draft law on anti-terrorism, which is meant to eventually replace emergency legislation, continues to include provisions that will allow the basic rights of Egyptians to be violated.  While the restrictive security laws remain in place, due process guarantees will continue to be ignored, with sometimes fatal consequences. Unfortunately, Egypt’s judicial shortfalls have other multifaceted ramifications. A recent article noted that the perceived lack of justice in Egypt, and more specifically the slow pace of legal proceedings and the lack of implementation of verdicts, has partially driven the increase in violent crime and the resultant rise in death sentences by compelling Egyptians to take justice into their own hands. Thus, judicial weaknesses are doubly responsible for permeating a deadly cycle of violence that will only be stopped when the legal rights of Egyptians are unconditionally observed.

Evolution of Lebanon's Hizbullah Remains Uncertain

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As the results of the June 7 Lebanese parliamentary elections came in, outsiders were surprised to find that Hizbullah, the Shiite Islamist group, and its allies – the favourites to win – had been beaten and had seemingly accepted their continued fate in opposition. Regardless of the results, the relatively smooth voting process was a victory for Lebanese democracy and human rights; however, the internal situation in Lebanon remains precarious and a continued parliamentary majority for the Western-oriented, Sunni-led March 14th alliance will not likely challenge Hizbullah’s continuing reign over large portions of Lebanese territory.

For the last half a century Lebanon has been the Middle East’s battleground, where various factions from the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) to the Syrian and Israeli intelligence services have fought proxy wars in order to weaken real and perceived threats from their foes. Even before the civil war began in 1975, there had been severe clashes between Lebanon’s three dominant ethno-religious groups, Maronite Christians, Shiite Muslims, and Sunni Muslims, which resulted in the creations of militias outside of the state military for the protection of each sect as well as the subjugation of their opponents – a zero-sum game that has continued to some degree ever since. The PLO took up residence in Lebanon after being expelled from Jordan in 1970, upsetting the delicate Christian-Shiite-Sunni balance, and began attacking Israel, prompting a number of military retributions and an occupation that ended only in 2000. Hizbullah’s history runs in parallel with Lebanon’s violent past. Founded in 1982 as a group for the protection of the Shiite community in southern Lebanon that had been abandoned by the state to face Israeli retribution alone, Hizbullah quickly emerged as a formidable anti-Israeli force, an efficient provider of services for Shiites living in the south and east of the country, and an effective defender of Shiite interests within Lebanon.

Understanding the rise of Hizbullah requires navigating the complex history of Shiism in the Middle East and in Lebanon in particular. Shiites, which comprise 10% of the Muslim population worldwide, have historically been discriminated against by the Sunni majority in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Bahrain. Though Shiites were given political space in post-independence Lebanon, Shiite political leaders tended to be unrepresentative political bosses who ran large patronage networks and oversaw the increased impoverishment of their respective population.   

With the increasing politicisation of Palestinians in the south of Lebanon (where most Shiites live) in the late 1960s, the reassertion of Shiism in Iran after 1979, and the rise of Islamism after the hopes of pan-Arabism faded with the death of Nasser,  Shiite politics in Lebanon underwent massive changes. The rise of the Amal movement witnessed the assertion of popular Shiite political power into Lebanese politics for the first time. Yet as the Iranian revolution gained strength and extended its reach, Amal’s secular oriented leadership was challenged by its religious offshoot which would eventually come to be known as Hizbullah (or, “the Party of God”).  Though Hizbullah’s stated goal was the expulsion of Israel from Lebanese territory, it quickly became a provider of social services to Shiites who would witness the organization’s commitment to their security firsthand during the civil war.

Hizbullah’s defining moment - and ironically, the first stage of its forced transformation – came in 1992 , when, after 15 years of civil war, parliamentary elections were held in Lebanon. An internal debate within the organization as to whether or not stand for elections ensued. Several of the organization’s ruling clerics were opposed to running for elections on the basis of it being “un-Islamic,” yet important leaders such as the current Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah, opted for running. Hizbullah representatives trounced their Shiite counterparts in the south and the Bekaa valley to the east in a deeply flawed election that was largely stage managed by Syria. Beyond their immediate relevance, the 1992 elections effectively brought Hizbullah into the Lebanese political fold, splitting the organization into two parts and ensuring broader Shiite representation in the Serail. Indeed, Hizbullah’s decision was also a signal that it would, at least for the time being, abandon attempts to forcefully impose an Islamic government on the country.

Hizbullah’s second transformative moment came in 2000 when, after a nearly two decades long war of attrition, Israel withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon. However, with Israel’s departure from Lebanon, Hizbullah lost its original raison d’être. Although the group disputed the withdrawal as complete, arguing over a piece of land called the Shebaa Farms, some soul-searching began within the organisation and in Lebanese society as a whole. Although Hizbullah’s overall existence was never brought into question given that it operates on a number of non-military levels, issues concerning its maintenance of a significant arsenal in peacetime were raised, and proved to be a serious source of contention in Hizbullah’s relationship with the state and with the international community Indeed, after a spate of political assassinations of Syrian opponents in Lebanon, possibly carried out with implicit or explicit help from Hizbullah, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1559, whose third operating paragraph calls for the disbanding of all militias operating in Lebanon. Given Hizbullah’s quasi-monopoly on force in Lebanon, the resolution was never carried out.

The tense relationship between the state and Hizbullah was exacerbated with the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005. Hitherto Hizbullah had been politically protected by its Syrian patrons, who had occupied Lebanon at the international community and Lebanese state’s behest in 1976. Over the next two decades, Hizbullah had little concern for domestic politics as Damascus ensured that the Lebanese state and military were weak. Furthermore, it was largely due to Syrian influence that Hizbullah was not required to disarm along with the other sectarian militias in 1989 under the Taif Agreement, allowing it to become the strongest military actor in Lebanon. With Sunni leader Rafik Hariri’s assassination in February 2005 and the mass anti-Syrian protests known as the Cedar Revolution that paralysed the country and prompted the Syrian departure, Hizbullah was forced to  openly declare its support for Syria  and lead an opposition movement (March 8^th) against the pro-Western ruling alliance (March 14^th).

The fissure has had serious consequences for Lebanese politics and society. First, it has divided Lebanese society into two camps creating unlikely divisions and even more unlikely allies. Second, it has exacerbated religious tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, who are clearly divided into their respective alliances, with the Christian population spanning both. Third, it has worked to pit Iran against the Sunni Muslim world, particularly Saudi Arabia, as well as the United States and France in a bid to define the future of the Lebanese state.

This split has also had unintended consequences for Hizbullah. In the past it had avoided involvement in the sectarian bloodletting, but as various groups sought to fill the security vacuum caused by Syria’s departure and Hizbullah looked to assert the demographic weight of the Shiite population, it began using its militia domestically. The situation exploded in May 2008, when the March 14 government attempted to fire the Hizbullah aligned head of security at Beirut’s international airport. Furthermore, the government sought to investigate Hizbullah’s private telecom network that it had created to wage war against Israel. After repeated assurances that it would never turns its arms on Lebanese citizens, Hezbollah and its allies took to the streets conquering large swathes of Beirut and Mount Lebanon while the Lebanese army looked on helplessly, fearing internal divisions would plunge the country into a larger crisis. The government was quick to back down in the face of a coup, but the political damage had already been done. In the end, the Doha Agreement ended the fighting and gave Hizbullah and its allies a veto in the cabinet, a position Hizbullah had long sought.

Though Hezbollah’s acceptance of its electoral defeat in June was comfort to some observers, it represented a temporary maintenance of the status quo. Yet the Lebanese political arena under the current dual alliance system continues to evolve.  With the return of General Michel Aoun, the Maronite Christians are abdicating their traditional support of the state for vague promises from Hizbullah. General Aoun, like a good many Christians who came to prominence as a military leader, seeks to be president – the constitution requires the office holder to be thus. However, unlike his predecessors, Aoun has allied with Hizbullah, formally signing a memorandum of understanding in February 2006, whereas previously the Christians had always supported the sovereign state. With this move he risks trading long-term influence for short-term safety. Likewise, the fourth main ethno-religious group in Lebanon, the Druze, have attempted to hedge their bets by improving relations with Shiites, although it is unlikely that this fiercely independent faction will formally align itself to one side anytime soon.

Though Hezbollah has certainly proven that it is willing to respect Lebanese democracy in some ways, it is clear that the central government’s lack of a monopoly on force is a constant threat to Lebanese democracy and stability. This should certainly be a cause for concern for governance-watchers. Some observers take concern even further. For instance, Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a fellow at Chatham House, declares that “the (Lebanese) state is not the state, the actual state is the state of Hizbullah. That’s the functioning state, it has an army which is efficient, well funded and well trained... it is the de facto power.” Furthermore, Mr. Hussain suggests that the eventual goal of Hizbullah is a state in which which Shiites reign supreme.

Whatever the true intentions, the concept of a ‘resistance movement’ coexisting alongside the Lebanese state is problematic at best.  Given Hezbollah’s overwhelming force and superior arsenal, there is little chance that the militia will be defeated on the battlefield. And although the strategy of trying to bring Hezbollah further and further into the Lebanese political fold appears to be working on the surface, it is a task fraught with danger and will not likely result in the group surrendering its arms.

Though it is still unclear if Hezbollah will be given formal veto power in the next cabinet, it remains that by force of arms, Hezbollah maintains a de facto veto power unknown in liberal democracies – a veto power which it did not hesitate to use in May 2008 and may not hesitate to use in the future.

In the end, Hezbollah will need to have a third transformative moment in which it finally decides whether to be a party for Lebanon or a party that is beholden to its financial and ideological masters Iran and Syria. It will also need to decide if it will remain a party of grievance or a party of broad appeal. Other actors, both within Lebanon and without, will be influential in this decision, but Hizbullah largely has the power to choose its path. Military strength, after all, brings with it the responsibility to make historic decisions.

Iran's Presidential Factional Maze

 

With Iran’s June 12 presidential election fast approaching, the factional dynamics in the political system are shifting furiously and causing notable political strife. Although the election is effectively a referendum on the incumbent, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his neoconservative Islamism characterized by a bellicose anti-western foreign policy and a financially crippling domestic policy, opposition groups – both liberal and conservative – are highly fractured, and the battle lines ever-evolving.

Ahmadinejad’s principle competitors for the presidency are Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a reformist who seeks to ease pressures on the media and engage abroad while maintaining the system’s basic structure. He was the last prime minister of Iran between 1981 and 1989 and was popular during his tenure. Mehdi Karroubi, a politician and cleric and the other “reformist” in the race, is more moderate and pragmatic regarding domestic reform in Iran and changing its foreign policy; he served as the speaker of the Majlis (the Iranian parliament) for a total of seven years over two terms.

Ahmadinejad has been fiercely attacked on all sides for his militarization of Iranian politics. The President’s base of support is firmly embedded in the military and paramilitary elements and extremist clerics of the Haqqani school – an archconservative Shiite sect that unequivocally adheres to the notion of a divine state and leaves no room for popular sovereignty. The most important and influential of these clerics is Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, the spiritual adviser to Ahmadinejad and a member of the Assembly of Experts, the body charged with electing the Supreme Leader. This makeshift radical alliance had been pushed to the margins of the Iranian power structure before Ahmadinejad’s rise, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s level of commitment to their continued preservation in power has always been extremely vague to outsiders. Furthermore, although in the last four years Ahmadinejad has managed to promote his allies to positions of power, with Ahmad Jannati, another founding member of the Haqqani school, serving as the chairman of the powerful Guardian Council, three other key institutions remain outside the incumbent’s control. These are the Assembly of Experts, the Expediency Discernment Council, which is an advisory body to Ayatollah Khamenei helping to resolve issues with parliament, and the Majlis.

Ahmadinejad’s role in increasing the influence of the army and extremist clerics in everyday life has earned him powerful enemies who would be classified as conservative by western standards, but juxtaposed to the current administration appear rather more moderate. One of these is Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former two-term president and current chairman of both the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Discernment Council. Though the dynamic has changed somewhat, the principle issue that has separated Ahmadinejad from the more pragmatic conservatives – let alone the reformists – is relations with the US. Whereas the former and his ilk are willing to accept great sacrifices in their striving for a “pure” Islamic republic, the latter are less confrontational and more actively seek engagement. This debate takes place in the wider context of evaluating Iran’s position in the world and is manifested at every level of domestic politics, especially during election season. Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment explains that Ahmadinejad is attempting to balance his clerical backers, who believe that one of the “fundamental pillars of the revolution, and one of the central identities of the Islamic republic, to retain an adversarial relationship with the United States.” However, Iran also has a very young population, much of which wants to normalize relations with the western world and sees the current antagonism as crippling Iran economically and isolating it politically, socially, and culturally. Walking the line between the ire of both groups is a constant challenge for the president.

Furthermore, Ahmadinejad’s mismanagement of the economy has also cost him support among conservatives. Mohsen Rezai, the former head of the Revolutionary Guards and an ally of the president in the 2005 elections, has recently criticized Ahmadinejad and announced his candidacy for the race. This move crucially splits the Principalists, a major conservative faction, who are far more inclined towards a free market economy than Ahmadinejad and the Haqqani school. As with Rezai, the Principalists fully supported Ahmadinejad in 2005, yet after four years of ever increasing inflation and unemployment, and crude government injections of money to support food subsidies and massive wage boosts, people have clearly realized that Iran’s development policy is lacking in coherence. Furthermore, Rezai has even declared his support for dialogue with the US. Whether this was done out of real conviction, or merely to raise support, or even out of purely economic considerations, the emerging consensus that there is a need to engage with the US can only be seen as a positive step.

Such dissent from Rezai might not be so disconcerting to Ahmadinejad – the former is not seen as a primary contender – had it not been for Ayatollah Khamenei’s recent public disapproval of the incumbent, as a recent New York Times article indicated. Furthermore, during Ahmadinejad’s recent visits to provincial capitals to raise support the state media took the step of specifically not airing coverage of Ahmadinejad’s trip. It is always possible to read too far into such signs, especially with Iran, where western knowledge of the local higher echelon politics is limited at best; however, the series of recent blows he has taken are certainly significant, even if potentially overestimated.

Yet while Ahmadinejad’s group appear to be under pressure to amend their stringent domestic policies, the reformist camp is faring little better. In February, Mohammad Khatami, a former president and candidate until he withdrew from the race in favour of Mousavi, was forced to abandon his advocation of democracy and publicly reaffirm the supremacy of the Islamic system as the foundation of any future state. Furthermore, Ahmadinejad is employing the full powers of the state against Mousavi and Karroubi, including the distribution of checks in poor neighborhoods and the persuasion of generals to endorse him. The greatest shock came in the last week of April, when the elections supervisor at the Ministry of the Interior predicted a clear Ahmadinejad victory. Naturally the state’s more coercive instruments have also been used to attack a wide range of opposition groups, from human rights activists to those pressing for democratization.

Although the 2007 Countries at the Crossroads report affirms that the independence of the judiciary has somewhat improved in recent years, these gains seem to have been put on hold with the elections so close. One example relates to one of the few developments in Iran’s factional battles that is easily observable from abroad: the case of Roxana Saberi, an American-Iranian journalist with US citizenship who was arrested for espionage. Her detention in itself seemed surprising; although Saberi wrote about the moderately taboo issue of the gender segregation in social life, she was careful to not aggravate the authorities with confrontational articles. That Saberi was arrested and her trial rushed through the courts was seen as evidence of the conservatives flexing their muscles to warn both international and domestic opponents ahead of the elections. However, Ahmadinejad’s subsequent call for Saberi’s case to be examined more closely by the judiciary, and her subsequent release, further highlights the factionalism in the conservative bloc, Ahmadinejad’s interest in avoiding choking off the possibility of dialogue with the west, and – perhaps most of all – the degree to which, in the current season, outside observers must largely simply watch and wait.

Governance Around the World: Updates

Yesterday, China released an official student death toll for the deadly earthquake that struck the country last May. The government reported that 5,335 children were dead or missing, while 546 were left disabled. Before releasing these numbers, authorities had largely ignored or stifled persistent requests for more information. Shortly after the earthquake, we discussed the initial Chinese response in a blog post. At the time, we noted that the level of transparency surrounding the earthquake was better than in the past.  However, this was not indicative of any extensive changes in policy. After the earthquake, the government continued to restrict reporting and use its propaganda machine to influence coverage. However, several Chinese journalists ignored government restrictions, which led to a notable increase in independent reporting on the calamity and allowed an impressive citizen response to the earthquake to emerge. Unfortunately, release of the death toll figures does not show that the government has made any strides over the last year. Indeed, the government actually ramped up its efforts to silence the parents and arrest the reporters who requested more detailed information as the anniversary of the disaster grows near. Finally, China has remained mute to allegations that school building corruption was responsible for the disproportionate number of collapsed school buildings and student deaths in the earthquake. In short, the hope that the earthquake response represented a more flexible turn in Beijing’s strategy was a false one.

In Yemen, developments are even more disheartening. In the past several weeks, a separatist movement in southern Yemen has become increasingly visible. Last week, demonstrations broke out after troops established checkpoints in the southern Lahij Province, and political leaders became more vocal in their calls for southern independence. This movement represents yet another serious challenge to a country already racked by insurgencies in the North and a growing level of Al Qaeda attacks. In general, the smoldering violence, political unrest, and regional antagonism reflects a lingering and increasingly dangerous legacy of Yemen’s 1990 unification and 1994 civil war. In a blog post last June, we discussed the rising violence in Yemen and the country’s festering governance problems. At that time, our major concern was the brutal struggle between the army of Zaidi rebels, a separatist movement, and the government in the capital of Sana’a. The government pursued these rebels both on the battlefield and via active targeting and persecution in the country’s judicial and media sectors. As an upshot of this fighting, governance practices took a major hit in the country as President Ali Abdullah Saleh attempted to forcefully reinstate order by ruling with an iron fist. Lamentably, as we survey the situation in Yemen a year later, little has changed, except for the worse. In fact, the new surge in violence and instability may lead to a further decline in civil liberties, press freedom, and rule of law as Saleh attempts to retain his ever more tenuous grasp over his country.

Nicaragua’s negative governance trend has also continued unchecked. With President Daniel Ortega at the helm, almost all remaining vigor in the democratic process has been removed from the country’s political scene. On November 9 of last year, Nicaragua held municipal elections in 146 towns and cities. In the run-up to the election, political and media freedom and equal campaigning opportunities were notably weak. Reporters including Nicaragua’s influential investigative journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro were harassed, civil society organizations were targeted, and both international and national election observers were barred from presiding over the election proceedings. According to the government’s official tallies, Ortega’s Sandinista Party won 94 municipalities. The opposition, however, has claimed that these elections were rife with fraud. In a blog post last July, we commented on the declining state of democracy in Nicaragua. At this time, we discussed the Nicaragua Supreme Electoral Court’s decision to eliminate the legal status of two major opposition parties and the regrettable consequences this decision stood to have on the country’s party plurality. The post raised alarm over the Sandinista party’s growing control over the country’s political apparatus. As the events surrounding the 2008 elections show, the state of affairs has only deteriorated.

In Nepal, political disorder rose dramatically this week as Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal  (aka Prachanda) resigned his post. On May 4, Dahal handed in his resignation after President Ram Baran Yadav declared Dahal’s decision to fire army chief General Rookmangud Katawal unconstitutional. Following this, on May 7, activists marched towards the president’s house in the capital in an effort to force his resignation for reinstating the army chief to his post. These events come after other developments had rendered Dahal’s post increasingly precarious. Specifically, two of Dahal’s alliance partners had left the government, leaving the ruling coalition led by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) without a majority in the constituent assembly. Last August, when Dahal first assumed his position, we wrote a blog post about the challenges facing the new Maoist prime minister. At this time, Dahal and the Maoists had recently gained a place in the country’s formal political scene after waging a guerrilla war for 10 years. We commented that the ruling coalition would likely have some problems maintaining their authority in the constituent assembly and retaining the support of their allies during the drafting of the new constitution. We also noted that dealing with the decommissioning of the Maoist People’s Liberation Army (MPLA) and controlling the state army could prove quite difficult. As the events surrounding Dahal’s resignation show, these problems not only presented themselves, but largely proved decisive in bringing about the downfall of the current coalition. Over the past year, conflict abounded as differences between the parties hampered the constitution-making process.  Furthermore, for the Maoists, revamping and attaining control over Nepal’s institutions, most notably the judiciary and military, proved enormously complicated and polemical. In fact, the proximate cause of this final dispute was the army chief’s opposition to the UN-required induction of former MPLA fighters into the army.  While Dahal has announced that he will be stepping down for the greater good “of democracy and peace” in Nepal, the chaos left in this week’s wake will be an additional obstacle to additional reform once the dust settles.

Finally, in Indonesia, the recent detention of anti-corruption chief Antasari Azhar cast a shadow over the country’s positive advancements in the realm of governance. On May 4, Azhar, the leader of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), was declared a suspect in the March murder of prominent businessman Nasrudin Zulkaraen. According to local news sources, Azhar and Zulkaraen both had an affair with the same golf caddy. Last October, we addressed the issue of Indonesian corruption. We noted that while serious institutional reform was still needed in order to eradicate Indonesia’s pervasive, decentralized corruption problem, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had made some preliminary progress towards addressing the daunting issue.  Furthermore, we commented that the 2003 creation of the KPK, a body invested with the authority to investigate and prosecute corruption allegations, was an especially “potent force for change.” While this organization was widely supported by the public due to its perceived integrity, the involvement of the KPK’s chief in the murder case at hand stands to shatter that image. As a result of Azhar’s detention, the KPK’s legitimacy, along with its past and future achievements, will undoubtedly be tainted. Consequently, the fight against corruption in Indonesia, a country that currently ranks 126th out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Index, will be encumbered.     

Algeria's Election Heralds Continuation of Status Quo

Algeria’s recent presidential elections yielded unsurprising results. On April 9, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika , who has ruled Algeria since 1999, was re-elected to a third term with 90.23% of the national vote. This extremely high margin of victory is undoubtedly inflated. While the participation rate was officially measured at 74.5%, the opposition estimated that roughly 24% of eligible voters participated. According to official tallies, opposition candidate Louisa Hanaoune came in second place with 4.5% of the vote, while none of the other candidates were able to garner more than a few percentage points.

While these results were expected, they are troubling nonetheless. Both the run-up to the election and the balloting itself were decidedly undemocratic. The president’s reelection bid was only made possible after the parliament approved his proposed amendment to the constitutional provision that had previously set a two term limit on the presidency. This amendment essentially determined the outcome of the election in advance. During the presidential campaign, the absence of a viable opposition was striking. This was partially the result of direct government interference in the campaign activities of the opposition. As the 2007 Countries at the Crossroads report notes, the development of a competitive party system in Algeria has been hampered by the government’s practice of refusing to award legal status to opposition parties. Without official authorization, parties are generally unable to participate in elections. As a result of this, the presidential election featured opposition candidates with little popular support. These candidates were widely considered to be “token opponents.” Several opposition leaders who were barred from participating attempted to stage a mass boycott as a last-ditch effort to influence the election’s results, but the protests were predictably stifled. Meanwhile, President Bouteflika utilized the resources of the state to exert control over the media and win over supporters on the campaign trail with extensive political handouts.

Apart from the government’s meddling, equally disconcerting is the prevailing environment of political apathy in which the election took place. Among both the general public and the formal opposition, the predominant line of thought seems to be that measurable change is unfeasible. While the opposition’s poor showing was principally the result of unfair government restrictions, a general lack of popular support and mobilization for the opposition was also a factor.

Unfortunately, in the realm of governance, a change of course is exactly what Algeria needs. Although the country must implement substantial reforms before governance can be improved, let alone democratized, Bouteflika failed to include any innovative policy proposals in the campaign. Instead, he repeatedly promised to boost economic growth and protect stability and security – important issues, to be sure, but far from visionary. The president’s health is another complication. Over the past few years, the 72- year-old president has been repeatedly hospitalized, possibly for stomach cancer. On top of all of this, he will likely have to focus much of his attention on the recent surge of terrorist attacks committed by the al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb. As a result of these factors, chances are slim that further headway will be made on crucial reforms with Bouteflika at the helm.

The details of the presidential elections serve as evidence of the country’s lack of progress in the sphere of accountability and public voice. While the election was generally free of violence, it was rife with fraud. In addition, Bouteflika has consolidated authority in the executive branch, largely through the support of the powerful military establishment. The president himself verified his half-hearted respect for important democratic principles: following the ratification of the constitutional amendment on term limits, he stated that democracy cannot “constitute a single, universal model…a model that must be adhered to and applied at all times and in all places.”

Moreover, Algeria’s level of respect for human rights and the rule of law is complicated by the president’s continuing focus on a particular conception of national reconciliation. As the 2008 Freedom in the World report on Algeria reports, the excessive amnesty laws passed by the government have resulted in an undermining of the justice system. As Human Rights Watch notes, terrorists and militants who committed heinous crimes during the civil conflict of the 1990s, during which 150,000 Algerians died and 6,000 disappeared, have escaped punishment, while groups representing the victims have been ignored and even actively harassed by the government. More recently, Bouteflika has expressed his willingness to pardon Islamic extremists responsible for organizing suicide bombings. In response to this, Amnesty International released a document earlier this year which denounced Bouteflika’s “legacy of impunity.” Due to the fact that reconciliation remained Bouteflika’s top campaign issue, nothing is likely to change in the near future. Relatedly, the state of emergency, which has been in effect for 17 years, gives the government the authority to unjustly imprison journalists and political dissidents, and Bouteflika has shown no inclination towards the revocation of the act.

Finally, the level of transparency in Algeria’s government is lamentable. As the 2007 Countries at the Crossroads report explains, corruption is entrenched in the country. In the 2008 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, Algeria ranked 90th out of 180. Despite his early promises to sweep Algeria’s political scene of corrupt officials, Bouteflika has largely turned a blind eye. Backroom dealings, often including cash handouts, were pervasive throughout the election. The separation of politics from business remains moribund, as do efforts to reform the military's role in commercial enterprise.

In essence, the president’s conduct during election season provides no evidence that Algeria’s poor governance record will be rectified. Real change in Algeria will require a changing of the guard. Given the constraints on the opposition, it is questionable how this will come about other than via a decline in Bouteflika’s health, which would create a dangerous vacuum. For now, then, Algerian governance will remain at the mercy of global economic fortunes and the interests of a narrow political class, and dispatches from the country will continue to feature descriptors like “stagnation” and “weak prospects” rather than “reform” and “justice.”

Photo Credit: Flickr user Franck Prevel

The SSSC: Syria's Rule of Law Black Hole

The Syrian court system recently came into the limelight with a detailed report issued by Human Rights Watch focused specifically on the notorious Supreme State Security Court (SSSC), which prompted a re-examination of Syria by a number of European newspapers such as the Guardian. The primary shift inducing this re-examination is the latest “thaw” in relations between Syria and the western world, and the fear that the power of foreigners to alter Syria’s internal conduct remains uncertain but is likely quite limited. Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has received a number of very high-profile visitors, including John Kerry, Nicolas Sarkozy, and various EU foreign ministers, yet he continues to judge that due to realpolitik considerations Syria’s external relations will remain the focus of diplomatic engagement. Thus can Bashar continue to defy calls for domestic liberalization, be it political, economic, or social.

The HRW report maintains that the court, which was founded during the state of emergency declared in 1963 and is the lead instrument in Syria’s persecution efforts, continues to incapacitate the rule of law in Syria. More specifically, the SSSC is utilized as political tool to suppress the opposition and political minorities through the use of unjust trials.Coupled with Syria’s emergency decrees, the SSSC is authorized to take any civilian into its military-style system, where any rights the defendant may theoretically have had quickly disappear. The court is exempt from Syria’s rules of criminal procedure. Furthermore, SSSC decisions cannot be appealed to any higher judicial body – a requirement under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Syria became a signatory in 1969. Due to the fact that the SSSC was created as an exceptional court, it is accountable solely to the Minister of the Interior.

The frightening amount of power delegated to the court has had serious ramifications for the rule of law. Where the SSSC is concerned, respect for the equality before the law simply does not exist. In fact, the SSSC has been utilized almost exclusively to attack and punish political opponents through the exercise of arbitrary justice. First and foremost, the SSSC has been used to target ‘Islamists,’ but recently the state has set its sights on political activists, including journalists and bloggers. In doing so, the state has ardently attacked freedom of expression in the country.

Persecution of political and human rights activist by the state broadly falls into four classifications: Article 278 is evoked when acts and/or speeches (supposedly) expose Syria to aggressive acts; Article 285 is cited when people (supposedly) weaken national sentiment; Article 286 is evoked for (supposedly) spreading false information that in turn weakens national sentiment; and Article 307 is used for inciting strife between various domestic groups.

Of the recent arrests, the highest profile were those of twelve pro-democracy activists detained last year for having taken part in an anti-government coalition. Habib Saleh received three years for ‘weakening national sentiment’ under Article 285 and ‘broadcasting false or exaggerated news which could affect the morale of the country’ – Article 286. The evidence used against him was a number of internet articles on domestic political issues. Mohammed Amin al-Shawa and nine other men were arrested by military intelligence in August, and five months later, still in military custody, al-Shawa died from torture.

Even the scope of arrests has widened. In the last year even mildly insulting the state, president, or government officials in private conversations, with no political involvement from any party, warrants three year jail sentences.

For the Kurds – 9% of the population – the situation is even direr. The Kurds have been frequently attacked through the SSSC and the greater justice system. The state does not even pretend to serve their needs, and the Kurds’ persecution is conducted on various levels. According to the Human Rights Watch report, the SSSC frequently convicts Kurdish citizens on charges of undertaking “acts, speeches, writings or other means to cut-off part of Syrian land to join it to another country.” Several Kurds have received this sentence after protesting in favor of expanding the rights awarded by the Syrian government to the traditionally marginalized and repressed Kurdish population. This conduct is particularly extreme considering that Syria’s Kurds do not partake in the fierce Islamism the state considers its greatest internal security threat. Both of the most recent Kurdish victims in the state’s judicial system, Hassam Hussein and Mustafa Jum’ah, were arrested for exercising their right to freedom of expression and association; neither are bellicose advocates of violent secession – the Syrian state’s primary fear from its Kurdish community. They are merely members of the Kurdish political party: however, as the ruling Ba’ath party is the sole party allowed to operate in Syria, all others are classified as illegal organizations.

Due to the fact that the SSSC exists mainly to carry out these political purges, due process guarantees are foreign concepts within its walls. As the 2007 Countries at the Crossroads Report on Syria explains, legal assistance is often denied to those citizens tried in the security courts. According to the Human Rights Watch report, defendants are often detained for months before being informed of the charges against them. In addition, both during and after their trials, defendants are rarely given the opportunity to consult with their lawyers. The experience of the twelve democracy activists mentioned above serves as evidence of this conduct. According to Amnesty International, the twelve were detained without trial and tortured into signing false confessions, while their lawyers were denied access to the accused and vital information was withheld.

The negative consequences that this dismal situation poses for governance are endless. As long as the SSSC lords over Syria’s judicial system, the rule of law will persist in its weak, debilitated state. Political dissidents, ethnic minorities, and ordinary citizens will continue to be held prisoner to a dangerous, compromised system which is dominated by powerful political puppet-masters. As both the Human Rights Watch and the Countries at the Crossroad reports argue, the only effective and permanent solution to the crisis of justice which has plagued Syria in recent years is the dissolution of the SSSC through the revocation of the state of emergency. While this is certainly a tall order, increased international pressure could go a long way towards getting the ball rolling. This will require patient engagement, but also the willingness to move beyond basic realpolitik concerns and challenge the totality of Syrian misconduct, including inside its own borders.

Photo credit: Flickr user madmonk