CAIRO, 18 October 2005 — Egypt has started building a wire fence around Sharm El-Sheikh’s tourist spots in a bid to prevent attackers from crossing into the Red Sea resort that was hit by deadly bombings in July, a security official said yesterday. “The fence aims to block cars from entering tourist areas except from four designated points and thus prevent possible terror attacks,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

The fence would span 20 kilometers, stand one-and-a-half meters high, and be patrolled by security forces, the official said. He said work started on Saturday but did not say when it would end. Once the fence is complete, access to the city will be restricted to police-monitored entry points, equipped with state-of-the-art explosive detection equipment, he said.

The opposition newspaper Al-Wafd put the fence price tag at 20 million Egyptian pounds ($3.5 million) but did not say how it obtained the figure. “How is Egypt different from the government of (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon) that built a separation wall to stop the Palestinian resistance?” it wrote on its front page. “This wall seeks to keep Sinai Bedouins out of Sharm El-Sheikh but it will only separate the state from its citizens ... it will not prevent terrorism, it will increase it,” it said.

In another development, Egyptian rights groups said yesterday they had recruited thousands of people to monitor the November parliamentary elections and aim to field more than in last month’s presidential polls, when they said abuse was rife. Several rights groups said abuses observed in the Sept. 7 presidential race such as ballot stuffing and intimidation were not enough to alter the result, which gave Mubarak an overwhelming 89 percent of votes on a low turnout.

But activists said the parliamentary race, which will be held in three stages starting Nov. 9, would be more competitive and the outcome less certain, which could encourage abuses such as vote-buying, which were limited in the presidential polls.

Mubarak’s National Democratic Party has more than 85 percent of Parliament’s 444 seats. Analysts say an opposition alliance, which includes the popular but banned Muslim Brotherhood, may strengthen the opposition challenge.