Problems
on hold
The
problem with ID and voter cards
The last five months were
so full of crucial events
on the national and Coptic level, that
I caught myself—apparently oblivious to the passage of time—missing out
on some of the problems long placed on hold by the authorities.
What with the presidential elections of last September, the Washington conference in October, the sectarian
riots in Alexandria in October and November,
the parliamentary elections which brought in an unprecedented number of Islamists—who won 20 per cent of the seats—to the
new Parliament in November,
and finally last month’s bloody assault on the village church in Udeisat, Luxor, the investigation on which has yet to yield the
culprits; other causes had to recede temporarily
into the shade.
Prominent among the problems
on hold are those concerned with the suffering people endure in order to have new computerised ID
cards issued to replace the old, manually-issued
documents which are now being phased out by the government. These old documents are usually submitted with the application for the new computer ones, and are the source of the information to be entered on the civil register computer. Frequently however, the civil register clerks enter erroneous information, naturally resulting in incorrect data on the
new documents. When faced with the error
and a request for
correction, these same clerks refuse to correct the errors claiming that “the computer does not err”. The victims are sent on arduous journeys to prove the veracity
of the information requiring
correction, even though the correct data had already been submitted in the original documents. ++Watani++
has printed instances of such
mistakes the victims of which had never been able to have their documents corrected, and the head
office of the civil register
authority responded by speedily correcting the errors.
Today, I publish another such horror case; only this time it needs a very
urgent correction, since it
concerns a young woman who has to sit for her Thanawiya
Amma or secondary school certificate examinations, and has no correct
ID card to prove her identity. Miss Mariam Nabil Sadeq Saïd, who is Christian, has been cited in the new computerised birth certificate which is pre-requisite
to the computerised ID card, as a Muslim born to a Muslim father and Muslim
mother. These same father and
mother are cited as
Christian in the [correct] birth
certificates of Mariam’s sister
Martha and brother Bassem. Mariam can neither afford
the time nor effort required to run the wild-goose chase which may—or
may not—lead to the correction of her erroneous birth certificate in time to apply for the examination. We would be
deeply grateful to General Sherif Galal, director general of the media and public relations office of the
Interior Minister, if he would hasten
to have her data corrected.
Another set
of problems concerns voter cards. I will today
begin writing about problem cases of issuing voter cards, since the
deadline for application is 10 March, and we would
like the biggest number possible of eligible voters to apply. Mr Maurice Gorgi Mikhail from
I wish to
stress to Mr and Mrs Mikhail
that we ought
not allow any irresponsible or weak-minded
official to drive us away from
participating in shaping the change we aspire for and which lies ahead. Most of us patiently
struggle to obtain documents we
cannot live without, such as birth certificates
and ID cards, but do not find it worth
our while to endure similar hardship in order to obtain a voter card. I believe we cannot
be more wrong. A voter card is not a dispensable piece of paper without which we
can go on with our lives. The
entire homeland stands to lose
if one invaluable vote goes
missing. In fact, this vote may well
be a deciding one in the destiny of our country.