Electoral commission staff empties a ballot box in the capital, Minsk, after polling stations closed in Belarus's parliamentary elections on September 23.
OSCE Slams Belarus Vote As 'Not Competitive From The Start'
MINSK -- The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) says it has "serious concerns" over weekend parliamentary elections in Belarus in which not a single opposition candidate won a seat in parliament.
The OSCE said on September 24 that the poll was "not competitive from the start."
"Many democratic rights" were not respected, the group's observers said in a statement.
Most opposition parties had pulled their candidates and urged voters to stay away from the polls, the latest in a string of flawed Belarusian elections since President Alyaksandr Lukashenka took power in 1994.
All but one of the 110 seats that were up for grabs were decided by clear majorities for parties loyal to the president or his program, according to RFE/RL's Belarus Service. Three candidates from the nonruling Communist Party of Belarus and one from the Agrarian Party were elected. Both of those parties ran on platforms supporting Lukashenka.
The one other seat will be contested in a second round, as neither candidate secured the necessary 50 percent.
WATCH: Belarus Central Election Commission Chairwoman Lidiya Yermoshina announces the vote was "successful" before she has to turn to a colleague for the turnout figure, which the opposition claims is inflated:
Antonio Milososki, the head of the OSCE's election observation mission, said the lack of neutrality and impartiality during the latest vote "severely undermines public confidence in the process."
"A free election depends on people being free to speak, organize, and run for office," Matteo Mecacci*, who led the short-term OSCE observer mission, told a news conference in Minsk, "and we didn't see that in this campaign."
Belarusian officials cited turnout of 74.3 percent, but the opposition claimed the actual turnout was much lower.
The observers singled out a lack of access or beatings handed out to reporters trying to cover the campaign, imprisonment or "arbitrary administrative actions" targeting opposition candidates, and flaws in the administrative and legal framework for elections, among other problems, hampering the voting.
Matteo Mecacci, who led the short-term OSCE observer mission
Mecacci said that while "there was an increase in the number of candidates put forward by parties...prominent political figures who might have played a role in this contest remain in prison or were otherwise denied registration due to their criminal record or arbitrary administrative actions."
The monitoring team sent by the Russia-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) judged the elections "free, demoncratic, and compliant with national laws."
The United States echoed the OSCE assessment. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said better respect for democracy and human rights in Belarus, including the release and rehabilitation of all political prisoners, "remains central to improving bilateral relations with the United States."
Lukashenka had called the political opposition "cowards" for withdrawing their candidates and pressing for the boycott.
The vote was the first in Belarus since an election in late 2010 handed Lukashenka a fourth term as head of state and sparked street protests that were brutally crushed by security forces and the courts.
Ahead of the latest vote, state-run television and radio made no mention of the boycott call.
RFE/RL's Belarus Service reported early on September 24 that authorities had rounded up "around 20 young people" and taken them to a police station in central Minsk. All of them reportedly had been taking part in an independent effort to monitor activities at polling stations.
Human rights groups said arrests and detentions of opposition activists marred the run-up to the voting.
Opposition groups were barred from holding street protests or handing out leaflets to support their boycott call.
* CORRECTION: This story was amended to correctly attribute the quote to Mr. Mecacci, rather than his ODIHR colleague.
Iran was one of the countries judged to have the least online freedom
Freedom House Says Online Repression Increasing, Diversifying
Attacks on Internet freedom are on the rise, and the tools employed by repressive governments are becoming increasingly sophisticated.
That's according to "Freedom On The Net 2012," a newly released report by U.S.-based rights watchdog Freedom House, that assesses 47 countries' online track records between January 2011 and May 2012.
Sanja Kelly, the report's director, says more "traditional" methods employed by repressive governments, such as filtering and blocking of undesirable content or imprisonment of prominent online figures, are being supplemented with more nuanced means.
"Threats to Internet freedom are becoming more diverse and are becoming much murkier than in the past," Kelly said.
"What we've seen over the last year and a half is that more and more governments are turning to tactics such as proactive manipulation of online content and extralegal surveillance to more covertly manipulate and influence internet content."
Of the countries surveyed in the report, more than a quarter used cadres of paid pro-government bloggers to try to discredit the opposition, spread false information, or prop up the official state line. Freedom House says the tactic was in the past "largely limited to Russia and China," but has now extended to Belarus, Ukraine, Iran, and beyond.
Freedom House says cyberattacks against government critics or efforts to impersonate and discredit activists online are also becoming more common, employed from Bahrain to Burma, Kazakhstan to Syria, and Uzbekistan to Zimbabwe.
Pro-Government Bloggers
"Freedom On The Net" highlights reports in the Russian media of an alleged plan by President Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party to invest more than $300,000 in an online scheme to undercut opposition blogger Aleksei Navalny.
While the Internet is considered to be a relatively open space in Russia, Kelly says the authorities have stepped up their attacks in response to the recent wave of antigovernment protests, many of which were organized through online networks.
"When we talk to the people on the ground, we hear about an increased number of phone calls by authorities, particularly in regions and on the local level, telling you that unless you stop posting online, not only will you suffer the consequences, but your family will too," said Kelly.
Freedom House also reports an uptick in various methods of surveillance, including new regulations passed in Kazakhstan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia that increase restrictions on user anonymity.
Just under half of the countries in "Freedom On The Net 2012" passed new legislation during the survey period that could hamper free speech online.
The report also notes an increase in physical assaults -- sometimes with deadly consequences -- against bloggers and citizen journalists from Central Asia to the Middle East.
Overall, Iran, Cuba, China, and Syria were judged to have the least online freedom, while countries including Uzbekistan, Belarus, and Pakistan were also classed "not free." Estonia, the United States, and Germany are rated freest.
Azerbaijan, Libya, Pakistan, and Russia were among the nations considered "particularly vulnerable to deterioration in the coming months."
According to Kelly, Baku is beginning to implement sophisticated surveillance of the Internet and authorities are stepping up their harassment of bloggers. It may be a sign of things to come.
"When the Internet Governance Forum, which will take place in a couple of months [November 6-9] in Baku, is over, I think the strong sense is that the authorities will not have to hold back because the international attention is not going to be on them and they're going to pursue some of these measures more harshly," said Kelly.
Despite the negative trends, Freedom House also says pushback by civil society and technology companies have also increased, with a "victory" reported in half of the countries surveyed. For example, proposals for national firewall in Pakistan were defeated after protest by civil society.
"Watchdog" is a blog with a singular mission -- to monitor the latest developments concerning human rights, civil society, and press freedom. We'll pay particular attention to reports concerning countries in RFE/RL's broadcast region.
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