Shayfeencom (
Egyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic, locally known as Colloquial Egyptian ( ar, العامية المصرية, ), or simply Masri (also Masry) (), is the most widely spoken vernacular Arabic dialect in Egypt. It is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, and ...
: ''We are watching you'') is an initiative that started with three Egyptian women (a prominent TV newscaster, a university professor, and a marketing consultant) to help bring
political reform
Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement ...
and
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...
to Egypt.
Shayfeencom is a popular movement, working on monitoring the legality and integrity of the presidential and parliamentary elections in
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
through the participation of the public. The movement aims to end corruption in the governmental and non-governmental institutions through public monitoring, and aims to educate the public to increase awareness of the principles of democracy.
Shayfeencom was officially established in 2005 by a group of non-politically oriented individuals, and started its first
monitoring
Monitoring may refer to:
Science and technology Biology and healthcare
* Monitoring (medicine), the observation of a disease, condition or one or several medical parameters over time
* Baby monitoring
* Biomonitoring, of toxic chemical compounds, ...
and observation experience in
Egypt's first multi-candidate presidential elections. Within the first month of launching the initiative, 5,000 people volunteered and joined online, and over 1,000 volunteers actively participated in monitoring elections. Today, the movement includes over 10 founding members, and thousands of regular members.
Shayfeencom is a nonprofit organization, without political or economic ideologies; all financing to the movement is done through Egyptian individuals.
Goals
Shayfeencom has three primary goals: to end corruption in all public and private institutions through public monitoring, to enable the citizens as key fighters against corruption, and to attain
electoral
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operat ...
and
judicial reform Judicial reform is the complete or partial political reform of a country's judiciary. Judicial reform is often done as a part of wider reform of the country's political system or a legal reform.Peter Barenboim, Natalya Merkulova.The 25th Anniversary ...
.
The main focuses are on:
*
Corporate corruption
In criminology, corporate crime refers to crimes committed either by a corporation (i.e., a business entity having a separate legal personality from the natural persons that manage its activities), or by individuals acting on behalf of a corpo ...
*
Electoral fraud
*
Government corruption
Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain.
Forms of corruption vary, but can include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, inf ...
*
Judicial corruption
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...
*
Kleptocracy
Kleptocracy (from Ancient Greek, Greek κλέπτης ''kléptēs'', "thief", κλέπτω ''kléptō'', "I steal", and -κρατία -''kratía'' from κράτος ''krátos'', "power, rule") is a government whose Corruption, corrupt leaders ...
*
Police corruption
Police corruption is a form of police misconduct in which law enforcement officers end up breaking their political contract and abuse their power for personal gain. This type of corruption may involve one or a group of officers. Internal pol ...
Methods
Shayfeencom uses its large membership database, all types of
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
, and a
hotline to receive reports of corruption in the country; it then files a case against the specified party. If the party does not respond, Shayfeencom uses the media to expose what has occurred; they might also carry out sit-ins and other demonstrations.
In 2007, documentary film director
Jehane Noujaim
Jehane Noujaim ( ar, جيهان نجيم, ) (born May 17, 1974) is an Academy Award nominated American documentary film director best known for her films ''Control Room'', '' Startup.com'', '' Pangea Day'' and '' The Square.'' In 2019, she co-di ...
(with Sherief El Katsha) broadcast the film ''Shayfeen.com'', which was a part of the ''
Why Democracy?'' project.
Members
Originally, the movement was founded by three women. It was ended by the
Mubarak regime
The history of Egypt under Hosni Mubarak spans a period of 29 years, beginning with the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat and lasting until the Egyptian revolution of January 2011, when Mubarak was overthrown in a popular uprising as ...
, but after the
ousting of Mubarak in 2011, Shayfeencom was re-established by new members.
Shayfeencom's membership is in the tens of thousands, but due to fear of
political persecution
Political repression is the act of a state entity controlling a citizenry by force for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing the citizenry's ability to take part in the political life of a society, thereby ...
, they have been discreet when pursuing official figures and have created a privacy policy which does not allow them to share other members' names.
History
Pre-Arab Spring
Shayfeencom began in 2005, after President
Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak, (; 4 May 1928 – 25 February 2020) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011.
Before he entered politics, Mubarak was a career officer in ...
announced that for the first time in 24 years, elections would allow for multiparty participation; this sparked demonstrations by Egyptians who denounced this move as a sham. When the government responded with a violent crackdown,
Bothaina Kamel
Bothaina Kamel ( arz, بثينة كامل; born 18 April 1962, in Cairo) is an Egyptian television anchor, activist, and politician. A long-time pro-democracy advocate, particularly in Shayfeencom, her professional career has been marked by repe ...
,
Ghada Shahbandar, and
Engi El-Haddad formed Shayfeencom.
For the 2005 elections, Shayfeencom armed supporters with video cameras and sent them to
polling station
A polling place is where voters cast their ballots in elections. The phrase polling station is also used in American English and British English, although polling place is the building s around the country to monitor the elections and document the political process. Supporters witnessed
electoral fraud and
voter intimidation
Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...
. When
Muslim Brotherhood candidates made a good showing in the first round of voting, security forces barred voters from entering the polls for the second round. By the third round, voters' frustrations incited violent clashes between protesters and police.
Although discouraged by a
voter turnout
In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This can be the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford Univ ...
of only 30%, the Shayfeencom leaders were heartened by the willingness of two judges to investigate election fraud carried out by eighteen of their colleagues. The judges found evidence of fraud, and Shayfeencom began rallying support for an
independent judiciary Judicial independence is the concept that the judiciary should be independent from the other branches of government. That is, courts should not be subject to improper influence from the other branches of government or from private or partisan inter ...
. In spite of the prohibition against assemblies of more than five people, crowds gathered outside the
Egyptian Judges' Club
The Egyptian Judges' Club (''Nadi al Quda'') was founded in Cairo, Egypt in 1939, primarily as a social club for judges. It is not formally registered as a professional association, as that would place it under the jurisdiction of Egypt's Ministr ...
to show their support. Many in the crowd were arrested and beaten, including Judge Mahmoud Hamza. The three founders of Shayfeencom produced a short film, aired on
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, about the plight of the judiciary. They encouraged the public to use all the technology at their disposal—radio, plasma screens, and the Internet—to support the May 25, 2006 "Judges' March for an Independent Judiciary".
The march and demonstration resulted in the arrests of thousands of civilians, who remained in prison for months. Though faced by a lack of money and failure to achieve earlier objectives, Shayfeencom continued its work. Co-founder Engi El-Haddad spoke to a group of world leaders (including former president
, describing the lack of political freedom in Egypt. In spring of 2007, Shayfeencom mounted a campaign against the government's proposed 34 constitutional amendments that would write parts of the
, Shayfeencom was re-established, with dramatically changed methods. They began preparing for the first Egyptian presidential elections months before it was announced, collecting thousands of volunteers from across Egypt and training them through
.
Members of the public watched for electoral irregularities and called a hotline to report them. Reports also came in through
. Alleged violations would immediately appear on Shayfeencom's website; a few minutes later, official monitors would either confirm or deny the reports. Two days into the first phase of Egypt's presidential elections, Shayfeencom received reports of over 1,000 violations throughout the country.
Shayfeencom remains as a