Jan 31, 2005 - In order to provide its readers with coverage of the sham elections taking place in Iraq under US insistence on Sunday, Mafkarat al-Islam correspondents went out early Sunday to walk through the streets and lanes of Baghdad.
During the day they documented numerous cases of fraud.

The correspondents found that the Iraqi Communist Party, a lackey organization of the US invaders, and the National Accord Party, which is led by puppet "prime minister" Iyyad 'Allawi, hired groups of women, children, youths and unemployed persons to work for them. These people were trotted before television cameras several times on Sunday to claim that there was "heavy voter turnout" at the polling places.

Mafkarat al-Islam correspondents found that those hired hands also claimed that Iraqi puppet police and puppet national guardsmen were "at their best" helping voters get to the polls.

Along similar lines, Jalal Talibani’s Kurdish chauvinist party distributed money and medium-sized transistor radios to all who agreed to wander over to the polls and vote, in an effort to encourage Kurdish voters to support their election slate.

Mr. 'Ali Nayif a resident of al-Karakh ath-Thani district in Baghdad said that in their local polling place everyone entering the building was asked to vote for a specific candidate. In some cases, he said, election workers would mark ballot form for the voter.

The second most senior Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent in Baghdad reported that he confirmed four cases of false votes within just five minutes in the polling station in Mahallat ash-Shaykh Ma'ruf al-Karakhi. Members of Ahmad Chelebi’s Iraqi National Congress Party were bringing in non-Iraqi citizens, probably Iranians, and the party members would issue them false Iraqi citizenship certificates, which they would use to get into the polls where they would then vote for Chelebi’s party. One election observer who worked for the United Nations also observed such a case, the reporter noted, saying that he told a foreign news company "we have uncovered just four cases of fraud and we don’t know how many might have taken place that went unregistered."

The correspondents noted that the US and puppet authorities had already designated certain specific satellite TV stations to cover the elections by conducting interviews with voters and officials. Those interviews were then distributed to all the other networks and news agencies. The officially designated satellite companies were al-'Arabiyah Satellite Network, the Iraqi Qanat ash-Sharqiyah, the Iraqi government TV station, and the American CNN.

All the correspondents for Mafkarat al-Islam confirmed that they had challenged any Iraqi or American official or even any of the satellite networks to mention that this arrangement was a fact.

The Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent in Baghdad’s al-Karradah district reported that that district was supposed to have 22,000 voters. In fact only 700 showed up, all of them followers of the parties running candidates. The al-Karradah district is known to be one of the biggest in Baghdad in terms of population density, and it is predominantly Christian.

"Israeli" Newspaper Correspondents Vote In Iraqi Election

The Zionist newspaper Ma'ariv on Sunday published a picture of its correspondent for Arab affairs, Jaki Huji, who is of Iraqi descent but a citizen of "Israel" voting in the Iraqi election in an election office in Jordan. The newspaper reported that Huji arrived in Amman with the Iraqi passport of his grandfather and the "Israeli" passports of himself and his father. Though he was questioned at the polling place, he was allowed to vote in the Iraqi election.

The correspondent said that he voted for a pro-western party. Huji said that another Zionist journalist working for Haaretz was also able to vote in the Iraqi election as were two more in Washington and London.

US, Britain Arrest Sunni Religious Leaders On Eve Of Election

Numerous reports have come in to Mafkarat al-Islam indicating the US and British forces launched a major campaign of arrests of Sunni religious leaders throughout Iraq on the eve of their election farce in the country. Twenty-eight imams, preachers, and scholars were arrested, included three muftis (Islamic jurisconsults), one of whom was 87 years old, ant the other two both more than 60.

All the religious figures were arrested on charges of inciting to boycott the election, and encouraging armed jihad against the American occupation forces.

The spokesman for Iraqi Sunni pious endowments (Waqf) told Mafkarat al-Islam that the legal adviser to the Sunni Waqf board, Shaykh Ahmad an-Nadawi and also Shaykh 'Abd ar-Rahman the imam and preacher in the al-Mahmudiyah Mosque, and Shaykh Ahmad al-Jannabi, the imam and preacher in the al-Aqsa Mosque were all arrested.

US troops raided the home of Shaykh Zahir ad-Darri, the brother of Shaykh Harith ad-Darri, General Secretary of the Board of Muslim 'Ulama’ Scholars in Iraq.

Correspondents of Mafkarat al-Islam in Samarra’, ar-Ramadi, Mosul, and Tikrit confirmed that early Sunday morning, US forces in those areas also arrested numerous influential religious figures known for their opposition to the elections.