Egypt to extend emergency laws

2008-05-25 11:04

Cairo - Egypt's 27-year state of emergency is to be extended by another year because legislation aimed at replacing it with a new anti-terror law is not ready, a parliamentary official told AFP on Saturday.

"On Monday the state of emergency will be extended by one year because the Egyptian government has not yet presented the anti-terror law" to parliament, said the official under cover of anonymity.

May 31 is the deadline for lifting or extending the controversial decades-old state of emergency imposed in 1981 after the assassination by Islamists of president Anwar Sadat.

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.

On Tuesday the state-backed National Council of Human Rights said there was no longer any basis for renewing the state of emergency.

'Stability'

"Nothing any longer justifies the extension of the state of emergency, all the more so as Egypt is experiencing a period of stability," said the watchdog headed by Boutros Boutros Ghali who was his country's foreign minister before becoming UN secretary general in the 1990s.

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.

"We call on President (Hosni) Mubarak to keep the promise he made during the (2005) presidential election campaign and abolish the state of emergency," the rights organisation said in a joint statment.

- AFP