Former Egyptian political prisoners banned from voting in democracy they created

As Egypt prepares for its first ever democratic election, there are some 30,000 people who won't be allowed to participate. These are Egypt's disenfranchised voters -- former convicts who are forbidden by Egyptian law from voting.

CAIRO, EGYPT (Catholic Online) - Voter disenfranchisement is found in many countries throughout the world including the United States. In this case, we're not talking about disenfranchisement of women, or ethnic groups, or other common reasons why people may be disenfranchised, but rather people who are disenfranchised because they have been convicted of a criminal offense.

It makes some sense. The logic goes that people who cannot follow the rules of society should not be permitted to have a say in what those rules should be. However, in a country like Egypt all is not what it may seem.

The heart of the problem is that many of Egypt's 30,000 disenfranchised voters have been convicted of political crimes, that is they have not committed violent offenses, or fraud, or done anything to harm other people, rather they have been convicted of challenging the former regime of Hosni Mubarak.

Despite the new democracy in Egypt, these people are still banned from voting. Many of them were former political activists whose efforts directly brought about the Arab Spring revolution and the new democracy that Egypt is preparing to enjoy.

Unfortunately, it is unclear just who these 30,000 people are. A master list is held by the government, and reporters and the public are not allowed access to it. Generally speaking, the disenfranchised know who they are -- but nobody else does.

According to Negad El-Borai, a Cairo-based attorney and rights activists, it is impossible to separate the political prisoners from the convicts. "In Egypt, we don't have anything called a political prisoner, because it's not in the penal code -- our legal system doesn't identify something called political crimes. They are just crimes -- like killing," he said.

Because there is no way to separate political prisoners from former convicts, there appears to be little remedy for hundreds or even thousands of former political prisoners in Egypt.

Many argue that the process of disenfranchising former convicts is undemocratic and generally wrong. The most common argument is that people who have served their time have paid their debt to society and a society should not continue to punish them after this debt is paid. This is a sentiment found not only in Egypt, but generally around the world -- including the United States.

The upcoming democratic elections are a test of many things. They are among the first fruits of the Arab Spring movement, they are a test of Egypt's fledgling democracy, and a demonstration of national integrity and credibility. Unfortunately, as long as political prisoners are lumped in with murderers, forgers, thieves, and other criminals, and are denied the right to participate in the very democracy that many of them have labored and suffered to create, for some it will be difficult to agree that Egypt has passed its first test of democracy.

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