Region

ALGIERS — Algerians weighed their options ahead of Thursday’s election, with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika urging a large turnout as he eyes a fourth term, his main rival warning of fraud and others demanding a boycott.

More than 260,000 police have deployed across the country to guarantee security in the 50,000 polling booths set up to accommodate the 23 million Algerians eligible to vote in the presidential race, which is being contest by six candidates.

The ailing 77-year-old Bouteflika is widely expected to clinch a fourth term, but he faces the damaging possibility of low voter turnout, with protesters calling on Algerians to snub the poll and disrupting rallies during the election campaign.

Late on Tuesday, Bouteflika urged “all citizens to participate in the presidential election”, and saying those who abstained were choosing to “remain on the fringes of the nation”.

His message was carried by national media, with the president rarely appearing in public due to his poor health, which has even prevented him from taking to the campaign trail.

Interior Minister Tayeb Belaiz insisted that “all the conditions of transparency, neutrality and security have been put in place for the success of this election”.

‘Election is a sham’ 

A coalition of opposition parties, including the Islamist Movement for the Society of Peace (MSP) and the secular Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD), have called on voters to shun an election they say is a “sham”.

Youth protest group Barakat (Enough in Arabic), founded just two months ago specifically to oppose the president’s bid for a fourth term, has described the vote as a “nonevent”.

Participation is set to be a key issue on Thursday.

Officially 74.11 per cent of the electorate voted in the 2009 presidential poll, which Bouteflika won by a landslide after changing the constitution to allow himself to run for more than two terms. But a leaked US diplomatic cable estimated the turnout at between 25 and 30 per cent.

A number of rallies were disrupted in the last week of the election campaign, some of them by Berber protesters in the traditionally restive Kabylie region backing calls for a boycott.

On Tuesday, thousands responded to the RCD’s call for a protest march in Tizi Ouzou, the Kabylie capital, demanding the promotion of the Berber language Tamazight, rejecting the election and denouncing the regime.

The protesters waved Berber flags and chanted slogans such as “ruling assassin!” and “no to the election masquerade!” the independent daily El Watan reported.

Abderezak Mokri, who heads the Movement for the Society of Peace — the Algerian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood — has insisted Bouteflika could only win the election by rigging it.

Haunted by the past 

The president’s main rival, Ali Benflis, has repeatedly warned of fraud during the election campaign, describing it as his “main adversary” in Thursday’s vote.

The former prime minister ran against and was heavily defeated by Bouteflika in 2004, alleging that his adversary’s landslide victory then was rigged.

Benflis’ repeated comments about the likelihood of electoral fraud have drawn angry comments from the largely absent president, who has been represented by seven high-profile allies during the campaign.

Without naming him, Bouteflika accused his rival of inciting violence, sedition and even “terrorism via the television”, in meetings with two visiting dignitaries, including Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Marcia-Margallo.

The hostile war of words between the election front-runners has dominated the run-up to the election, with Benflis telling reporters on Tuesday that fraud was his “enemy”, saying it was “immoral and degrading, and dishonours all those who resort to it”.

He warned that he would “not keep quiet” if the election is rigged, and he said he had an “army” of people in place to monitor the poll “consisting of 60,000 people, most of them young men and women armed to the teeth with conviction.”

Bouteflika’s supporters have emphasised his role in ending Algeria’s “black decade” of civil war, in which an estimated 200,000 people were killed.

BAGHDAD — Iraq has closed Abu Ghraib prison, made infamous by Saddam Hussein’s regime and US forces, due to security concerns following a mass breakout last year, the justice ministry said Tuesday.

The country is suffering a protracted surge in violence that has claimed more than 2,550 lives this year, and the area west of Baghdad where the prison is located is particularly insecure.

The ministry announced online the “complete closure of Baghdad Central Prison, previously [known as] ‘Abu Ghraib,’ and the removal of the inmates in cooperation with the ministries of defence and interior”.

The statement quoted Justice Minister Hassan Shammari as saying 2,400 inmates arrested or sentenced for terrorism-related offences have been transferred to other facilities in central and northern Iraq.

“The ministry took this decision as part of precautionary measures related to the security of prisons,” Shammari said, adding that Abu Ghraib prison is “in a hot area”.

It was not immediately clear whether the closure was temporary or permanent.

The prison is located between Baghdad and the city of Fallujah, which has been held by anti-government fighters since early January.

Shelling in Fallujah on Tuesday killed five people and wounded 16, while mortar rounds and twin suicide bombings in Anbar provincial capital Ramadi, farther west, left one dead and eight wounded.

Abu Ghraib prison served as a notorious torture centre under Saddam Hussein, with an estimated 4,000 detainees perishing there.

It later became a byword for abuses by US forces following the 2003 invasion, with photographs surfacing the following year showing detainees being humiliated by American guards, igniting worldwide outrage.

And in July 2013, militants assaulted Abu Ghraib and another prison in Taji, north of Baghdad.

Officials said hundreds of inmates escaped and more than 50 prisoners and members of the security forces were killed in the assaults, which were claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a powerful jihadist group.

Iraq has been hit by a year-long surge in violence, driven principally by widespread anger among the Sunni Arab minority, who say they are mistreated by the Shiite-led government and security forces, and also fuelled by the civil war in neighbouring Syria.

Violence has killed more than 340 people since the beginning of the month, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.

CAIRO — An Egyptian court on Tuesday banned members of ousted president Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood from running in upcoming elections, a lawyer and state media said.

Egypt’s military-installed authorities are engaged in a deadly crackdown against the Islamist movement, which swept elections in Egypt after the overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak in 2011 but is now blacklisted as a “terrorist group”.

A court in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria ordered authorities to bar any candidacies from Brotherhood members or former members in presidential and parliamentary elections

The ruling came after a group of private citizens who have protested against the Brotherhood filed a petition calling for the ban.

“It is illogical to receive such candidacies after the government designated the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation,” Tareq Mahmoud, a lawyer from the group, told AFP.

“We submitted videos, photos and documents showing terrorist acts carried out by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is why it is illogical that they lead the country or represent its people in elections.”

In December, the authorities blacklisted the Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist group” after blaming it for a deadly bombing north of Cairo that was claimed by a jihadist group.

Former army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, whose popularity has soared since he deposed Morsi last summer following massive protests, is widely expected to win the May 26-27 presidential election, which is to be followed by parliamentary polls.

Authorities have waged a brutal crackdown on the Brotherhood since Morsi’s overthrow, with Amnesty International estimating that more than 1,400 people have been killed, mostly Islamists.

More than 15,000 Islamists, mainly Brotherhood members, have been jailed, while hundreds have been sentenced to death following often speedy trials.

The 85-year-old Brotherhood, Egypt’s most well-organised opposition group during decades of dictatorship despite being banned, stepped out of the shadows after the 2011 uprising.

It won a string of polls culminating in the 2012 presidential election, when its candidate Morsi became Egypt’s first freely elected leader.

Under Mubarak’s rule, the group was banned but tolerated, and had candidates run as independents. In 2005, Brotherhood candidates won dozens of seats in parliament.

In March, Saudi Arabia declared the movement a “terrorist group”, while earlier this month Britain ordered a probe into it amid concerns of links with violent extremism.

Key leaders of the group have been based in London since the toppling of Morsi and the police crackdown.

BEIRUT/DAMASCUS — Some 400 men, including rebels and draft evaders from besieged areas of Syria’s city of Homs, who recently surrendered to the authorities, fear they may be held indefinitely, activists said Tuesday.

Evacuations from the battered districts began in February, during a UN-supervised humanitarian operation that saw some 1,400 people leave the blockaded rebel areas.

The operation was initially intended to allow women, children and the elderly to leave the areas, where people have been surviving on little more than herbs for nearly two years, but scores of men also left.

Then, some two weeks ago, another 300 men — mainly rebel fighters and draft evaders — also left the siege, including a civilian activist who identified himself as Omar.

“There was a promise that the army defectors [rebel fighters] would be released if they handed in their weapons, and they did. There was talk that we draft evaders would be released too, but till now, there is nothing,” said Omar.

He and the other men are all still being held at a former school called Al Andalus, located in Homs city.

Omar says they are being held in good conditions “but we don’t know anything about what will happen to us. We are waiting and waiting”.

Speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, a UN source in Syria confirmed that 300 men “left [the siege] spontaneously, without negotiations and without a ceasefire. They are currently in Al Andalus school”.

The source also said local charities are delivering food to them.

For his part, Homs Governor Talal Al Barazi said: “Every day some 10 to 25 men leave [besieged] Old Homs and hand over their weapons. We welcome them in a hospitality centre for as long as we need to study their situation.”

“Each person has a specific case. Some stay [in Al Andalus] for two days, others for a week, and others for longer. Last Friday we cleared 54 men.”

The governor told AFP he does not know how many men in total are being held in the school.

The detainees’ fears come amid a major escalation of violence against the besieged, rebel areas. For the first time since last summer, the army entered the besieged area on Tuesday, under cover of fire.

Assault

Syria’s army launched a major ground assault on the central city of Homs on Tuesday, state television said, with troops entering rebel-held districts under government siege for nearly two years.

“The Syrian army and the [pro-regime militia] National Defence Forces [NDF] have achieved key successes in the Old City of Homs,” Syrian state television said, adding that troops were advancing in several besieged neighbourhoods in the area.

An activist on the ground and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights NGO both confirmed the report.

“They have entered into one [besieged] area, Wadi Al Sayeh, which lies between Juret Shiyah and the Old City,” said Abu Bilal, an activist trapped inside the blockade, who spoke to AFP via the Internet.

“This is the first time the regime has entered the besieged areas since it took Khaldiyeh” in summer 2013, he added.

Activist Abu Fehmi, also trapped in the siege, said the army was “bombing very, very intensely”.

“They are bombing using all kinds of weapons,” he told AFP via the Internet.

Britain-based observatory director, Rami Abdel Rahman, said the army’s entry into the besieged areas comes a day into a major escalation by the army.

“The military operation began yesterday after NDF forces were deployed to strengthen the regime troops’ presence,” Abdel Rahman told AFP.

“The army managed to take control of a handful of buildings,” he said, adding that “they do not have military significance.”

Activists opposed to President Bashar Assad’s regime have long referred to Homs, Syria’s third city, as the “capital of the revolution” that broke out in March 2011.

The city initially saw some of Syria’s biggest anti-regime protests, and was one of the first areas where the opposition became militarised, but most of it is now squarely under regime control.

ERBIL, Iraq — Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region is digging a trench along its border with Syria to prevent the infiltration of militants and smuggling from the war-racked country, officials say.

“The trench is designed to prevent the infiltration of members of terrorist groups and stop smugglers,” Halkurd Mullah Ali, the spokesman for the Kurdish region’s peshmerga security ministry, told AFP.

Smugglers “began operating in these areas because the Syrian authorities lost control of them, and these areas became insecure,” Ali said.

The trench is 17 kilometres long, two metres deep and three metres wide, and is “part of an Iraqi [federal] government strategy” to protecting the country’s 600-kilometre border with Syria.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia Tuesday urged “stern” world action against Syria after the regime’s decision to hold presidential elections and its alleged use of toxic gas against civilians.

Saudi Arabia is one of the main backers of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad in a civil war increasingly seen as a proxy battle between it and regional rival Iran.

Syria’s plan to hold elections is “an escalation and undermines Arab and international efforts to peacefully resolve the crisis based on the [outcomes of] the Geneva I conference,” said Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal.

A 2012 peace conference in the Swiss city called for a transitional government ahead of free and fair elections, with no mention of Assad’s role in the transition.

Syrian daily Al Watan reported Tuesday that the date for the presidential elections will be announced next week and is expected to be around June.

The international community has criticised Syria’s plan to go ahead with the vote, which would likely see Assad win another seven-year mandate.

This decision, “as well as dangerous information on the regime’s recent use of toxic gases against civilians in the town of Kafr Zita”, in the central Hama province, represent “clear defiance” of the UN Security Council, Faisal said in Riyadh.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said residents choking from poisoning in the rebel-held town of Kafr Zita were hospitalised after bombing raids on Friday.

Activists in the area accused the regime of using chlorine gas, saying it caused “more than 100 cases of suffocation”.

But state television claimed that Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front, a key force in the revolt, had released chlorine in an attack on the town.

More than 150,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict broke out in March 2011, according to the Observatory.

No negotiations 

with Qatar 

Separately, Prince Faisal took a swipe at Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, who charged in March that Saudi Arabia and neighbouring Qatar were supporting militant groups in Iraq and across the Middle East, as well as terrorism worldwide.

Saudi Arabia criticised those accusations as “aggressive and irresponsible,” and Prince Faisal said it would be “more useful” if Maliki would “address Iraqi politicians and his people to resolve his country’s problems instead of throwing them at others.”

Iraq has been hit by a yearlong surge in violence that has reached levels not seen since 2008, driven in part by the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

Relations have always been strained between Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia and Maliki’s Shiite-led government, backed by Tehran.

Turning to the crisis between his country and Qatar, Prince Faisal insisted there were “no secret negotiations” to defuse tensions.

Last month, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recalled their ambassadors from Doha after accusing the fellow Gulf Cooperation Council state of interfering in their internal affairs and of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

GCC countries “are free in their policies, provided they do not harm interests of other members” of the regional grouping, said Prince Faisal.

“As long as these countries adhere to this principle, there will be no problems among GCC states.”

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies are hostile to the Brotherhood, fearing its brand of grassroots activism could undermine their authority.

DUBAI — The boss of a telecom company accused Israel of using sanctions to hold the Palestinian economy hostage after Israel stopped his firm from importing equipment to launch services in Gaza.

Wataniya Palestine had imported 40 per cent of the equipment it needed to launch a mobile service — considered a driver of economic growth — before Israel last week tightened restrictions on the Palestinian territories.

“Why is the economy held hostage? Don’t you want to give people hope or is it just a way to polarise society?” Wataniya’s chief executive Fayez Husseini told Reuters in an interview.

“You’re pulling the private sector into the political arena. Let the economy grow, let the people work and then you defuse political tension.”

Israel imposed economic sanctions against the Palestinians on Thursday in retaliation for their leadership signing international conventions.

An unnamed Israeli official told Reuters then that Israel would deduct debt payments from tax transfers the Palestinian Authority routinely receives, and limit the self-rule government’s bank deposits in Israel.

The official made no mention of a trade element to the sanctions, though Husseini said that “when the Palestinians went to the UN agencies all [Wataniya’s] remaining shipments were halted”.

Having waited seven years to begin operations in Gaza the firm, an affiliate of Qatar’s Ooredoo, had obtained Israeli permission for the equipment imports into the enclave in December.

“We have no ability to install or operate a radio network there. It was not optimal, but we accepted what Israel proposed in terms of spectrum and they were supposed to come back four weeks ago with the final go-ahead and we haven’t heard since.”

Loss-making Wataniya received telecommunication licence for the calls- and text-based 2G and Internet-capable 3G services in the Palestinian territories in 2007.

It launched 2G in the West Bank in 2009, having waited two years for frequencies. It is still waiting for further spectrum to provide 3G services in the territory and Israel has halted talks on that as part of the sanctions, said Husseini.

Politics and technology

Israel, which occupied the West Bank in a 1967 war, controls the airwaves of the territory, and Palestinian firms’ lack of 3G is a constraint on its technology sector while Israel’s soars.

“It’s a pure political issue and it will only serve to slow down the economy, said Husseini. “3G is all about data and businesses getting connected.”

The World Bank estimates that a 10 percentage point rise in broadband penetration can increase a country’s economic output by between 0.5 and 1.4 per cent.

Under its licence, Wataniya should be the sole 3G provider in the West Bank for four years. But 3G sim cards for Israeli operators are being sold there illegally, Husseini said.

He estimates Wataniya is losing about $100 million of 3G revenue annually to Israeli operators. “There’s a spillage of 3G from the settlements into the West Bank cities,” said Husseini. “It comes at no cost — they don’t pay any taxes, any fees.”

Husseini urged the Palestinian Authority to extend and amend Wataniya 15-year licence to allow for the restrictions it has faced, and said the remaining $214 million it owes on its $354 million licence fee should be waived.

“Our view is that we overpaid and we should not be paying any more,” said Husseini, as the 3G four-year exclusivity clause “constitutes the majority of the licence fee”.

Wataniya generated revenue of $89.2 million in 2013, up from $84.1 million a year earlier. That increase helped it trim its loss last year to $21.3 million from $23.8 million in 2012.

Husseini said a prolonged cost-cutting programme will enable the company to turn profitable even without Gaza or West Bank 3G, “but we will not be like a normal telco, where we should have been a supermarket we will have to operate like a grocery store... We plan to break even by 2016-2017.”

Wataniya sold 15 per cent of its shares in an initial public offering in 2011. It was also due to float a further 15 per cent.

“Given our situation we don’t feel there will be any demand for our shares at this point,” he added. “When things turn around we will go back to the original plan.”

Wataniya’s shares ended Monday at $0.91, up slightly on Wednesday’s all-time low, but 30 per cent below their IPO price.

TEHRAN — Iran on Monday urged United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to intervene directly in a row sparked by America’s refusal to give Tehran’s chosen UN envoy a visa.

The spat over Hamid Aboutalebi has undermined a cautious thaw in relations after decades of enmity following the storming of the US embassy in 1979 and the subsequent hostage crisis.

“We ask Mr Ban Ki-moon to step in and take the necessary action for resolving this issue,” Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi told the official IRNA news agency.

As the host government, the United States is obliged to issue visas to diplomats who serve at the United Nations. Aboutalebi has previously attended sessions at the UN headquarters in New York.

Washington has said it will not issue a visa to Aboutalebi because of his links to the students who seized the US embassy just months after the Islamic revolution in 1979.

Aboutalebi has insisted he was not part of the hostage taking although he has acknowledged that he served a limited role as a translator for the students.

RAMALLAH — Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are to meet again Wednesday with US mediator Martin Indyk in a bid to try and save the peace process from crumbling, a Palestinian official said.

Indyk would travel to the region to oversee the meeting, the second three-way talks since last Thursday, said the official who requested anonymity.

There was no immediate confirmation from officials in Israel, which observes the seven-day Jewish holidays of Passover from sunset on Monday.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat met on Sunday his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s special envoy Yitzhak Molcho on Sunday.

That meeting was “difficult” and there are still “big gaps” between the sides, the Palestinian official said.

The talks hit an impasse two weeks ago when Israel refused to release as agreed a group of Palestinian prisoners and the Palestinians retaliated by seeking accession to several international treaties.

The peace process suffered a new blow last week after Israel said it would freeze the transfer of duties it collects on behalf of the Palestinians in retaliation for their diplomatic offensive.

The monthly 80 million euros ($111 million) in taxes collected by Israel represents about two-thirds of the Palestinian Authority’s income.

Israel also reportedly plans to suspend its participation with the Palestinians in developing a gas field off the Gaza Strip and to put a cap on Palestinian deposits in its banks.

Direct peace talks were kick-started in July by US Secretary of State John Kerry, who shuttled back and forth to the region to revive a peace process that had been dead for three years.

They have since hit obstacle after obstacle and further deteriorated just weeks ahead of an April 29 deadline.

TRIPOLI — The Libyan trial of more than 30 top figures from Muammar Qadhafi’s deposed regime opened briefly Monday but the court adjourned proceedings as key defendants, including onetime heir apparent Seif Al Islam, were absent.

The adjournment until April 27 came just 40 minutes after the trial started, as rights groups voiced doubts that the defendants, accused of abuses during the 2011 uprising that toppled the regime, would get a fair trial.

It was the second postponement since March 24.

Out of 37 charged only 23 were in the dock, sitting behind bars in blue prison uniforms in the heavily secured courtroom.

Among those present were former intelligence chief Abdullah Al Senussi and Qadhafi’s last premier, Al Baghdadi Al Mahmudi.

Senussi appeared weak and pleaded with the court to treat him like other prisoners.

“I would like this treatment to end so that I can receive visits from my family like the other prisoners,” he told the judge when asked if he had any requests.

The prosecution said Senussi was never denied visiting rights and had been visited by family members.

Seddik Al Sour, the representative of the prosecution, admitted however that some of the defendants were given “special treatment” due to what he described as the “gravity of the charges against them”.

All the defendants are charged with murder, kidnapping, complicity in incitement to rape, plunder, sabotage, embezzlement of public funds and acts harmful to national unity.

Mahmudi asked the court to be allowed to see his lawyers in jail, and said that some members of his defence team had not been allowed to attend the trial. At least two lawyers represented him on Monday.

During the brief 40-minute hearing, some lawyers complained that they have had no access to the charge sheets against their clients.

The prosecution dismissed their claims, saying the documents could be consulted any time at the prosecutor’s office but that defence lawyers were barred from making copies of them.

Monday’s postponement was due to a number of defendants, notably Seif, being absent, and is meant to give lawyers time to prepare their cases.

It will also allow for preparations to be made to set up video links with Seif and other prisoners who are detained outside Tripoli and whose transfer could pose a security risk.

Grossly unfair’ to defendants 

Seif has been held in the western town of Zintan since he was arrested by rebels in November 2011. The central authorities in Tripoli have tried without success to negotiate his transfer to the capital.

The other defendants are held in the eastern city of Misrata.

Seif and Senussi are wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the uprising.

In May, the ICC rejected Tripoli’s request to try Seif in Libya because of doubts over a fair trial. Tripoli has appealed the decision.

But the ICC last October gave Tripoli the go-ahead to try Senussi inside the country.

Saadi Qadhafi, another of the slain dictator’s sons, was extradited from Niger in March, and is also due to go on trial. However, he has not yet been formally charged.

Human Rights Watch has called on authorities to grant the defendants full access to a lawyer, adequate time to prepare their defence and the ability to challenge evidence presented against them.

But Richard Dicker, HRW’s international justice director, said in a statement Monday that “this case has been riddled with procedural flaws right from the beginning, which have made it grossly unfair to the defendants”.

“Putting Qadhafi-era officials on trial without fair-trial guarantees shouldn’t leave anyone satisfied that justice is being done,” he added.