Yesterday the People’s Assembly approved President Mubarak’s request to extend Egypt’s state of emergency for another two years, starting from June. The Emergency Law has been amended to include a new article limiting the implementation of the law to combating terrorism and the trade of narcotics.
The speech made by Prime Minister Nazif before the People’s Assembly, prior to the adoption of the law, raised a glimmer of hope as the promise was made of a state that respects « its commitments in the area of human rights, and respects the rights and freedoms of its citizens, which are not infringed upon by the emergency law » and refers to international human rights instruments and mechanisms.
Unfortunately, the reading of the Presidential decree proves to be in direct contradiction with the good intentions expressed by the Government as Article 3-1 of the Emergency Law remains in force, which grants exceptional powers to the President of the Republic and a large arsenal of exceptional measures in the hands of the security apparatus to impose restrictions on civil liberties and human rights.
FIDH remains deeply concerned at the maintaining of a climate conducive to the perpetration of serious human rights violations such as the systematic practice of torture, arbitrary and incommunicado detention, resort to exceptional « emergency courts » that do not provide the minimum guarantees of a fair trial and whose verdict cannot be appealed, violations of freedom of assembly and freedom of expression or the repression of social protest.
FIDH urges the Egyptian authorities to repeal the Emergency Law and related decrees altogether and to ensure that the new anti-terrorism law will be based on the requirement of international human rights law, and in particular will take into account the requirements relating to the definition of « terrorism », the necessary respect of fair trail guarantees and the absolute prohibition of torture.