HRW: repressive environment undermines fairness of Egypt's elections

The repression that followed the ouster of Mohamed Morsi has severely undermined the fairness of the 2014 presidential elections in Egypt, said the international rights group Human Rights Watch in a statement Wednesday.

“The mass arrests of thousands of political dissidents, whether Islamist or secular, has all but shut down the political arena and stripped these elections of real meaning,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The presidential election cannot mask the ongoing brutal crackdown on peaceful opposition.”

HRW added that the Muslim Brotherhood has been declared “terrorist” without any credible evidence, and that thousands have been rounded up including both secular and Islamist opponents of the coup, “solely for peaceful exercise of the rights to free expression, assembly, or membership in an opposition group.”