Egypt extends state of emergency by two years

Egypt on Monday extended a controversial decades-old state of emergency by two years despite pledges to replace it by new legislation, in a move slammed by rights groups as anti-constitutional.

Parliament passed the law after a brief debate following a decision by President Hosni Mubarak to extend the state of emergency from June 1, a parliamentary official said.

The state of emergency was imposed in 1981 after the assassination by Islamists of President Anwar Sadat and has been repeatedly renewed since then despite protests from rights groups and regime opponents.
Last year Judicial and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mufid Shehab said the state of emergency would end in 2008, even if the new anti-terror law meant to replace it was not ready.

"The state of emergency has for decades been one of the main causes of human rights violations in Egypt," Hafez Abu Sada of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) told AFP.

Egypt's authorities have used the state of emergency to clamp down on political opponents, including the country's largest opposition movement, the banned Muslim Brotherhood, whose members sit in parliament as independents.

"We reject the extension of the state of emergency because there is no constitutional justification," Brotherhood political bureau member Essam al-Aryan told AFP.He said the Brotherhood would now start a public awareness campaign about the law.

On Tuesday the state-backed National Council of Human Rights said there was no longer any basis for renewing the state of emergency. Earlier this month two dozen independent human rights groups also called for the emergency to end, saying it "flies in the face of the comprehensive social, economic and political reforms under way in Egypt."

Press reactions
Political analyst Diaa Rashwan wrote in the independent daily Al-Masry al-Youm on Monday that "10 anti-terrorist laws could have been drafted in the time since Mubarak said he would lift the state of emergency.

" He called the extension a "crime," while the state-owned Al-Goumhuriya daily stressed the need for stringent security measures after thousands of Gazans forced their way across the frontier into Egypt in January to buy goods.

"Remember what happened when the Palestinians violated our borders... arriving with explosive belts around their waists and with grenades and bullets in their pockets," said an editorial."Was the state supposed to wait for a magistrate's warrant before arresting them?"