Egyptian opposition blasts state of emergency

A recently announced two-year extension of Egypt's 25-year-old state of emergency bodes ill for the future, according to activists and members of the opposition. The extension of the emergency law–in place ever since the 1981 assassination of former president Anwar Sadat–was approved by a Apr. 30 majority vote in the People's Assembly. "Parliament agreed to a presidential decree extending the state of emergency for another two years or until an anti-terrorism bill is complete," read a front-page story in the pro-government daily Al-Ahram. Proponents of the extension cited recent terrorist attacks in the Sinai resort town of Dahab, which killed at least 23 people, as a justification for the move. In a speech to Parliament, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif "emphasized that the extension of the emergency law has come at a time when Egyptian society is facing terrorist attacks," the state press reported. He added that Cairo would not have extended the law unless it was "absolutely necessary." Activists and members of the political opposition, however, question the emergency law's efficacy in combating terrorism. "The government's ongoing implementation of emergency law has been unsuccessful in combating both terrorism and other crimes," said Esam al-Eryan, leading member and spokesman of the Islamic fundamentalist opposition group the Muslim Brotherhood. "The extension of the state of emergency is very negative," said Ahmed Seif-al-Islam, human rights lawyer and director of the Cairo-based Hisham Mubarak Law Center. "It will thwart the political reform process." According to Seif-al-Islam, the extensive powers granted to state security and the general prosecution by the emergency law have only served to weaken both agencies. "The fact that the citizenry and judiciary are not allowed to monitor these bodies have rendered them incompetent," he said. "They've grown accustomed to being unaccountable, so they show repeated signs of failing to thoroughly investigate a given crime or suspect." "Faced with a crisis, they mishandle it using violence to a degree that new potential terrorists emerge where cooperation with citizens could have been fostered instead," Seif-al-Islam added. Activists, who have long campaigned against the state of emergency, say the government has historically used the emergency law to thwart political opposition rather than terrorism. "The government doesn't utilize the state of emergency to combat terrorism as much as it does to put severe and unexplained restrictions on members of the political opposition," said al-Eryan. George Ishaq, coordinator and spokesman for the outspoken pro-democracy Kifaya group, agreed with this assessment. "The law is used specifically to target the opposition," said Ishaq. "The arrest of 48 Kifaya members–under provisions made to state security forces by the emergency law–during demonstrations on Apr. 27 [in Cairo] proves that." Thousands of riot police officers sealed off access to the High Court during the demonstration, beating and arresting protesters who had turned out to support two judges facing a disciplinary panel because they had accused the government of election fraud. Around 8am, green troop carriers rumbled into the center of the city and deployed more than 3,000 troops, a number that swelled to about 10,000 by midday, according to witnesses and videotapes. The army of riot officers pressed in with long wooden poles and body-length shields to seal off the High Court building from a relatively small group of protesters on the street. The police also arrested a journalist for the television network Aljazeera who had reported–incorrectly–that an insurgent attack on the police had spread into the previously calm delta region, a report that instantly caused a tumult in the capital. The network retracted the report, but the government held the newsman, saying he was guilty of "spreading confusion." The focus of the demonstrators was over the treatment of the two judges and in support of more than 80 others who had been staging a sit-in for more than a week to demand an independent judiciary.