”I'm an Egyptian expat with a National ID number and a passport, yet I don't have the right to vote in any elections or referendum, are you going to help me?” said Nader Torki, an Egyptian living in Dubai. “Egyptian inside, Egyptian outside, the right to vote is the same,” was the chant rocking the street in front of the Egyptian Embassy in Canada. Egyptian expats were trying to get their voices heard to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and authorities. ”Away but not less Egyptian, Egyptians abroad demand the #right2vote,” was the message they were trying to deliver, either by protesting in front of Egyptian embassies worldwide, or just showing their support by ”tweeting/blogging” about it. They argued that on April 12, 2011, the Egyptian Cabinet announced that e-voting would be applied to allow Egyptians living abroad to participate in the next elections. Surprisingly, no word was heard from the government ever since. ”Tunis after the revolution has given their expats the right to vote and run for Parliamentery seats in the foundation board,” said Ahmed el-Sawy, an Egyptian journalist. “120 counties allow their expats to vote in every election or referendum, why not Egypt as well? What is SCAF scared of?” argued Twitter users and expats who showed their support in an e-protest by using the hashtag #right2vote. Ever since the hashtag was created, calls for protests and actual dissent has been roaming Egyptian communities worldwide. In New York, Egyptians decided to show their anger by joining the #occupywallstreet protests and lifting signs that showed their dissent towards portraying them as “less Egyptian” than the ones living in Egypt. They argued that they had a crucial role in the revolution when Egypt went ‘offline' by delivering the message worldwide that the police was cracking down on peaceful protests. They even managed to get the hashtags: #jan25, #Tahrir, and #Mubarak trending for the first time ever on the popular microblogging website. Protesters in solidarity with Maikel Nabil Sanad. Egyptians overseas have been linking their exclusion from the next elections to the road of “fraud” to finding its way again into the elections, like it did last parliamentary elections, starting with the NDP (National Democratic Party). “We are referred to as mudbloods, give us our right to vote!” was a humorous tweet comparing Egyptians abroad to Hermoine Granger of Harry Potter. “Let us cut the transfers and see what the SCAF does about it now in the terrible economic situation,” was a threatening tweet made by some users as a response to the claimed voting ban. 4 million Egyptians living in 139 foreign countries want their right. 4 million Egyptians want their voices heard. 4 million Egyptians want to never be silenced like they have been for 30 years. In other news, the #SCAF hashtag was tremendously tagged on Saturday after news that prominent activists, Asmaa Mahfouz (@asmaamahfouz), Noor Ayman Noor (@noornoor1) and Ahmed Azam were summoned on Saturday after allegedly disrespecting the SCAF's generals and Field Marshal Tantawi in particular. According to the military, direct insults of the organization were reported to be a “crime” that the military prosecution was currently examining. Mahfouz's summons is not her first, as she was once called in by military prosecutors after one of her tweets was said to be “provoking people for violent acts against the military forces.” Mahfouz's prominence and Twitter users' rage was one of the reasons why she was shortly released and the charges dropped. The activists' summons is a flashback to Maikel Nabil Sanad‘s case, an Egyptian blogger on a of hunger strike who has been sentenced three years for disrespecting and defaming the image of the SCAF among the Egyptian population. ”The SCAF is slacking by trying to find a way or an excuse to try people in military courts,” said Mona Seif, an activist responsible for the No Military trials (#NoMilTrial) initiative. This is yet to be confirmed by the military court themselves. We can agree that the #SCAF hashtag is being used more often nowadays to criticize the council's acts and delivering the message that social media's voice is one of the most important elements in Egypt post-#Jan25. An important video circulating on social networks today ** Menna Alaa can be found on twitter: @TheMiinz
