Leadership Council for Human Rights

~ Feet in the mud, head in the sky ~

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Egypt will lift 25 year state of emergency in 2008

After 25 years, Egypt will lift its state of emergency, declared Judicial Affairs Minister Mufid Shehab on Saturday. “Whether the law on terrorism is passed by this date or not, the government will lift the state of emergency by the end of June 2008,” Shehab said, according to the Egyptian state-run news agency Mena.

The state of emergency was first declared in 1967 and remained intact even after President Hosni Mubarak pledged to lift it in 2005.

Both nongovernmental organizations and opposition parties have voiced concern that new anti-terrorism legislation that would replace the emergency law will threaten human rights even more.

Recently, Egypt has been criticized domestically and abroad for a host of rights violations. Rights groups like Amnesty International fear that Mubarak’s proposed anti-terror legislation, which allows authorities to search homes and intercept mail without a judicial mandate, will only further erode Egyptian rights.

For the full article, click here.

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