It has been widely reported that the referendum on Egypt’s new electoral system was marred by violence. The referendum was passed with 82% of the vote with 54% participation amid a widespread boycott by both Islamist and secularist opposition parties. Meanwhile, multiple accounts were given of opposition protesters being physically attacked by supporters of President Hosni Mubarak and his National Democratic Party. (See my pre-referendum post, Egypt Clamps Down on the Muslim Brotherhood, which provides some background and discusses some of the issues regarding reform in Egypt.)

But how bad was the violence? The Egyptian government, unsurprisingly, is arguing that the violence against opposition activists was unacceptable, but badly exaggerated by the American media (click here for the full Reuters report):

Presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad told Reuters he believed the U.S. comments and media coverage in the United States and elsewhere were “unfair and unjustified… When you have more than 54,000 electoral units nationwide, (and) when you have two sad, unacceptable incidents taking place in the greater Cairo area, this is not something to be exaggerated in the way some circles did.”

Awad was responding to comments by U.S. President George W. Bush, who said on Thursday: “The idea of people expressing themselves in opposition to government and then getting beaten is not our view of how a democracy ought to work.”

Witnesses said demonstrators were beaten near a Cairo mausoleum where they were protesting and were attacked outside the Journalists Syndicate. Demonstrators were also hit at another site in Cairo after being pursued by NDP supporters. Awad said public prosecutor Maher Abdel Wahed was investigating victims’ complaints. Asked if there would be arrests, he said: “This is something to be decided by the judiciary.”

Since Egypt is accusing the U.S. media of inflaming the situation, let’s take a look at what the pro-Islamist Arab paper Al-Quds Al-Arabi had to say, which included not only accounts of violence but of sexual groping of female protestors by regime supporters:

…The Kifayya opposition movement yesterday accused the government of depredations and offenses against opponents and sexual harassment against girls and women during the demonstrations which took place yesterday against an amendment to the constitution which provides for a presidential election among more than one candidate under conditions rejected by the opposition Äthe link to my post above details what the conditions wereÅ. The statement said that “our honor has been broken and our blood has been spilled and the women among us have been disgraced for the cause of a single man…Äand those guilty of this wereÅ criminals holding a picture of the president (Hosni Mubarak) in one hand and knives and stones in the other.”

Supporters of the ruling national democratic party and police officers in civilian clothes attacked activists from Kifayya… and there was sexual groping of the women, among them some female journalists, likewise they had their hair pulled and were beaten as the security forces opened the way for supporters of the National Democratic Party so that they could arrive at the precise location of their meeting…

Al-Quds followed this with a report on opposition claims that Egypt’s referendum “consecrates a system closer to dynastic authoritarianism.”

Speaking of dynastic authoritarianism, President Mubarak’s son, Gamal Mubarak, gave a speech in front of the American Chamber of Commerce following the vote about economic reforms after the “historic initiative” represented by the referendum. According to the Arabist Network, however, questions were vetted in advance, and no questions about the abuse of regime opponents were even allowed:

ABC, BBC, LA Times, and the Washington Post posed written questions asking whether there would be investigations regarding the women sexually assaulted last Wednesday and if the crackdown on opposition was a contradiction with the policies secretariat????????s view of the reform process. None of their questions were selected by the moderator.

After the meeting ended, the foreign press stringers went to the podium where they were cut off by AmCham????????s executive director (Hisham Fahmy) and executive V-P (Gamal Muhharam). As one stringer told me, ???????They switched from speaking about democracy in American accents to treating us like we were in a local coffee shop.??????? According to reports, ???????Fahmy and Muhharam started saying things in Arabic like ???????you all don????????t have manners and are rude,???????? ???????you are not invited again to an AmCham event,???????? and ???????if you ask those types of questions, you should go and talk to the Americans about them????????.???????

The Western affiliated journalists were offended and told them not to invite them anymore and that it was a waste of time.

It doesn’t seem that the Egyptian government’s theory about an American media conspiracy against them is holding up too well, with even Mubarak’s son unwilling to attempt to refute the allegations. In contrast to the comments from the First Lady the other day, at least President Bush has spoken forthrightly about the violence. The time is now well past for the United States to drop its $2 billion/year subsidy to the Mubarak regime. Our association with it has done enough harm already.

Contributed by Kirk H. Sowell of Window on the Arab World, and More!