Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Back to The Future?? Tuesday's papers: Broadening of Emergency Law evokes fear



Al-Masry Al-Youm

"In the wake of the recent attack on the Israeli Embassy, the Egyptian government has decided to reinstate the Emergency Law, with amendments that will expand its reach to political demonstrations and media reporting. Independent paper Al-Shorouk’s headline on the issue reads, “Politicians describe the amendments to the Emergency Law as a catastrophe.”

By the end of 2010, former President Hosni Mubarak’s government had officially narrowed the scope of the Emergency Law, making it applicable only to terrorism and drug smuggling offenses. State-run Al-Gomhurriya quotes Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) spokesperson Mamdouh Shaheen as saying, “The state of emergency is meant to face organized violence and crime, along with any threat to Egypt’s security.”

Despite the reimposition of the law, Shaheen affirmed that somehow - amid all of the injustice, oppression and violations of human rights that emergency laws have historically afforded Egyptians - that “legal rights of civilians will be observed.”....."

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