How can Egypt's elections be described as free and non-violent when the country has so many political prisoners?
Mark LeVine
Al-Jazeera
"Cairo, Egypt - 12,001. That is the minimum number of Egyptians who aren't able to vote in parliamentary elections that began this week because they are prisoners of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). Which begs the question: How can these elections be described as free and non-violent when so many Egyptians remain political prisoners of the country's military junta?
The majority of the Egyptian and the interational media are characterising the voting as peaceful and relatively fair. Winners, especially the Islamist parties (at least of the time of writing), are celebrating their victories and losers are generally urging supporters to work with the process.
But many activists, who worked the hardest since January to bring real democracy to Egypt, have been left asking: What does this election mean when thousands are jailed merely for opposing those in power (or, for many, merely for being in the wrong place at the wrong time)? What do these elections mean when one of the country's well-known bloggers, Alaa Abdel Fattah, can be held for weeks on charges surrounding his reporting of the military's massacre of Coptic protesters in October, when voters are threatened with 500 Egyptian pound fines if they don't vote, and when the military uses massive amounts of tear-gas, and even bullets on pro-democracy protesters whenever it feels its position threatened?....
If in the coming weeks there is no move to demand their release, then there is a good chance that the fears of those who sacrificed the most for the revolution that began on January 25 will be realised, and the new system will in fact be little more than a retread of the old one. But if the newly elected parliamentarians demand freedom for Alaa Abdel Fattah and the other far less known prisoners, the tree of freedom planted in Tahrir might just have a chance of taking root in the coming years."
Mark LeVine
Al-Jazeera
"Cairo, Egypt - 12,001. That is the minimum number of Egyptians who aren't able to vote in parliamentary elections that began this week because they are prisoners of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). Which begs the question: How can these elections be described as free and non-violent when so many Egyptians remain political prisoners of the country's military junta?
The majority of the Egyptian and the interational media are characterising the voting as peaceful and relatively fair. Winners, especially the Islamist parties (at least of the time of writing), are celebrating their victories and losers are generally urging supporters to work with the process.
But many activists, who worked the hardest since January to bring real democracy to Egypt, have been left asking: What does this election mean when thousands are jailed merely for opposing those in power (or, for many, merely for being in the wrong place at the wrong time)? What do these elections mean when one of the country's well-known bloggers, Alaa Abdel Fattah, can be held for weeks on charges surrounding his reporting of the military's massacre of Coptic protesters in October, when voters are threatened with 500 Egyptian pound fines if they don't vote, and when the military uses massive amounts of tear-gas, and even bullets on pro-democracy protesters whenever it feels its position threatened?....
If in the coming weeks there is no move to demand their release, then there is a good chance that the fears of those who sacrificed the most for the revolution that began on January 25 will be realised, and the new system will in fact be little more than a retread of the old one. But if the newly elected parliamentarians demand freedom for Alaa Abdel Fattah and the other far less known prisoners, the tree of freedom planted in Tahrir might just have a chance of taking root in the coming years."
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