UN troops nab activists in East Timor
UN troops nab activists in East Timor
DILI, East Timor (Agencies): Two activists from East Timor's front-runner party Fretilin have been arrested for allegedly using threats in campaigning for the territory's first democratic elections, UN officials said on Friday.
They were arrested in the southern border town of Suai earlier this week by United Nations civilian police officers and are being held in Dili's Becora prison.
"The two gentlemen were allegedly threatening others to vote for their party," a spokesman for the UN police unit, Luis Carrhilo, told a press conference.
He refused to name their party or elaborate on the threat. UN sources said they were from Fretilin, the front-runner among 16 parties contesting Thursday's elections.
Police had received 10 election-related complaints since campaigning began in July, the spokesman said. However of the five complaints they have investigated, only the Suai case was found to be substantive.
Court authorities decided to hold the two men for 30 days pending further investigations, he added.
Local election observers on Thursday accused several parties including Fretilin of isolated cases of intimidation. The only violence reported has been minor incidents of stone-throwing.
The observers and other officials including the UN's Peacekeeping Force (UNPKF) have praised the generally smooth campaigning.
"We're encouraged by the peaceful way in which political rallies have been conducted right across the country," said a UNPKF spokesman, Captain Jeff Squire, adding the security situation across East Timor was stable.
A U.S.-based election monitoring group, the Carter Center, said on Friday it was satisfied with conditions for East Timor's first free elections next week but expressed concern over cases of voter intimidation.
Although political rallies in the current campaign have largely been peaceful, the leading party Fretilin used words such as "traitors" to describe its opponents, the Carter Center said in a report.
Carrhilo said 14 minor campaign offenses had been reported so far. Only one instance of intimidation was substantiated, he said.
Meanwhile, a Jordanian UN police officer has been indicted on charges of raping an East Timorese woman at the Dili Hotel in July. The policeman was arrested on July 5.
The police spokesman, Carrhilo, said the Dili District Court would hold the rape trial soon.
On Aug. 30, the second anniversary of the former Portuguese colony's vote for independence from Indonesia, some 409,000 East Timorese will elect 88 candidates to sit on a constituent assembly. Sixteen political parties and 16 independent candidates are contesting the vote.
This will draft a constitution and become the national parliament. Independence is expected by next year.