After being released on bail in March for the presidential campaign, Ayman Nour, the liberal opposition leader who got second place in this year’s presidential election, has been convicted of “forging signatures” for his candidacy registration papers. He has been given five years of prison time. The charges are false. The judiciary is corrupt. And this is certainly not the way to build a liberal democratic society. It has completely called into question Mubarak’s dedication to reform; not that anyone truly believed in it anyhow. The U.S. government is not taking kindly to the news.

An Egyptian court sentenced a top opposition leader to five years in prison Saturday for forging petition signatures in a trial that strained relations with the United States and raised doubts about the sincerity of Egypt’s democratic reforms.

Ayman Nour, who came in a distant second to President Hosni Mubarak in the country’s first contested presidential elections earlier this year, said the government invented the forgery charge to eliminate him from politics.

The White House said Saturday that the conviction “calls into question Egypt’s commitment to democracy, freedom, and the rule of law.”

The United States was “deeply troubled” by the conviction and called on Egypt to release Nour, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Nour’s Al-Ghad party issued a statement saying Saturday’s verdict was “a matter of settling of the accounts of the presidential elections.”

“The verdict had been issued long time ago, and it did not come from the court but from the regime which has destroyed political life for many decades,” Al-Ghad said.

Nour, whose chief lawyer promised an appeal, was ordered detained earlier this month ahead of the verdict. He has been on a hunger strike for two weeks, was moved to a hospital a week ago and looked pale in court Saturday.

His wife and lawyers in the courtroom, and hundreds of his supporters outside, erupted in anger when the conviction was announced.

“Down with Hosni Mubarak!” his wife, Gamila Ismail, shouted.

“This is a political verdict that will be annulled by the appeals court,” attorney Amir Salem said. “This verdict will go into the dustbin of history.”

He said he would appeal to Egypt’s highest appeals panel, the Court of Cassation.

Outside, about 500 Nour supporters chanted “Hosni Mubarak’s rule is illegal!” and “The trial is illegal!” They were barred from the court building by hundreds of riot police, who had closed off the street.

If elections are to be held in Egypt in which liberal candidates and reformers are elected to office, not only must blatant fraud be stopped, but the government must stop persecuting liberals while allowing the anti-democratic Muslim Brotherhood to operate near freely. It should be the other way around.

Democracy is not sustainable without the conditions that allow moderation and compromise. Likewise, democratic systems are designed in different ways in order to make this happen. We have seen throughout history that when extremist groups come to power, they quickly dismember the very institutions that allowed them to do so. That is not democracy; that is dysfunction.

That’s exactly what is happening in Egypt. The supposed reforms that Mubarak sponsored are not democratic. They’re dysfunctional. He is trying to convince the West that, by opening up the political system (in the way he chooses), the Muslim Brotherhood will come to power and the country will become a haven for Islamic extremism. He’s saying, “It’s me, or them, and you’re better off with me.” The Egyptian government would then point to the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood scored 20% of the seats in November’s parliamentary election while the liberal parties fail miserably.

It would be a mistake to believe this. Elections alone don’t make a democracy. It includes a vibrant non-governmental civil society, something that the Mubarak government has repressed for decades. Because of this, and allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to flourish as its only opposition, the liberal parties have not been able to develop that vast grassroots network that the Muslim Brotherhood has. While its candidates may have scored 20% of the seats, only about 25% of the population actually voted, so it is hardly representative.

With the imprisonment of Ayman Nour, this is the perfect time for the United States to re-examine its relationship with the Mubarak regime and start cutting the $2 billion in aid given to it every year. We have to instead deliver them a message that we won’t stand for stalling, and that Ayman Nour must be given his freedom.

The Big Pharaoh: “Now the issue is between the Egyptian government and the US administration. There is a lot of similarities between Nour’s and the Saad Eddin Ibrahim’s case, the human rights activist who was sentenced to 7 years behind bars yet was released as a result of US pressures. The judge who sentenced Nour today is the same guy who sentenced Ibrahim. And Ibrahim was released when he appealed. So the question is: will the US administration act in the same manner so that Nour might get released when the verdict is appealed? That’s what many Nour supporters are hoping for even if they don’t publicly admit it.”

Freedom For Egyptians: “Whether we agree with Ayman Nour or not, today is another blow to democracy efforts that I call farce that started with the amendement of article 76 of the constitution that allowed multiple candidates to run for the presidency.

What answer should we seek for the attacks by the thugs of the ministry of the interior on opposition demonstrations, the Black Wednesday May 25, the cold blood attacks on voters in the parliamentary elections….the list of violations is long… and life is getting heavier by the minute… we are back to square ONE…. The regime’s National Democratic Party thugs are in power, joined by the ‘Banned’ Muslim Brotherhood and Mubarak is still in power for 30 years grooming his son…..Is there a hope?”