"Iraq “cracked down harshly” on freedom of expression and assembly in 2011 by intimidating, beating and detaining activists and journalists, Human Rights Watch said Sunday in its World Report 2012.
“Iraq is quickly slipping back into authoritarianism as its security forces abuse protesters, harass journalists and torture detainees,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Despite U.S. government assurances that it helped create a stable democracy, the reality is that it left behind a budding police state.”" washpost
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"The political wing of Egypt’s most historic Islamist party won by far the largest number of seats in the first post-revolutionary parliament, final results confirmed Saturday, and is now poised to play a dominant role in the drafting of a new constitution.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party took 47 percent of seats in the lower house of parliament, and the ultraconservative Salafist Nour Party won 25 percent of the elected seats." Leila Fadel
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"Followers of a puritanical form of Islam will fill about a quarter of the seats in the lower house of the new Egyptian parliament on Monday, underscoring the political power being wielded by Islamists in the wake of the Arab spring.
Finding themselves badly outnumbered, some Egyptian liberals are weighing whether to align themselves with the moderate Muslim Brotherhood in hopes of preventing an all-Islamist alliance between the Brotherhood, whose Freedom and Justice Party will be the largest in the new parliament, and the ultraconservative Salafist Nour party, the second-largest." Leila Fadel
