Amendments to the law of exercising political rights established for trading religious slogans to falsify the will of the voters

Cairo, 1^st April 2013

Amendments to the law of exercising political rights established for trading religious slogans to falsify the will of the voters

The Arab Center for Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Professions (ACIJLP) expresses its profound concern over the amendment to certain provisions of exercising political rights in a manner which includes exploitation of ordinary people and influence on their feelings and their decisions in purely political matters, through using religions, whether the Christian religion or the Islamic religion, in the elections."

The Shura Council Committee for Constitutional and Legislative Affairs ended at its meeting on Sunday March 31 2013 the discussion of articles of the draft law on exercising political rights provided by the government. the Committee agreed to cancel the paragraph of "use of religious slogans" of Article 60 of the law and banning the electoral campaign based on discrimination because of gender, origin or religion, and to punish those who violates this law by imprisonment for a term not less than three months and a fine of not less than five thousand pounds and not exceeding ten thousand pounds ". The committee approved these amendments at its plenary session convened in Shura Council on Monday 1^st April 2013.

The ACIJLP believes that this drafted new Article entrenches the use of religion for political purposes, and enables to tamper with the feelings of the citizens and to falsify their will, to the point of electoral fraud that was occurring in the past, but extended to falsify the will of voters and counterfeiting will of the nation.

This opinion is supported by determined penalty. The penalty for this electoral crime differs in terms of their strength from the rest of the penalties for other electoral crimes contained in this law. While Article 55 provided for imprisonment for not less than one year and not exceeding five years and a fine not less than ten thousand pounds and not exceeding one hundred thousand pounds " for many of the electoral crimes and banning the electoral campaign based on discrimination because of gender, origin or religion and a fine of not less than five thousand pounds and not exceeding ten thousand pounds.

The ACIJLP points out that the use of religions, and the exploitation of houses of worship whether in churches or mosques in matters of election and the election campaign, will abort the trend towards a civil state, based on democracy, equality and the rule of law. This will return the Egyptian society to the state of zero again.

The ACIJLP calls upon the Egyptian government to take the necessary measures in order, not to involve religions and criminalizing their use in matters of a political nature, and toughening punishment for using religion in political matters, in order to build a truly democratic society not based on absurd feelings of people and falsify their will.