cairo – “O our extraordinary ruler, all the people are drowning in your injustice,” was one of the famous chants of members of the Kifaya Movement (2004-2010) in Egypt, a group of forces opposed to the late President Hosni Mubarak, as an expression of Egyptians’ desire for change during his non-emergency rule.
Egypt’s modern history says that for most of the last century, the country was ruled by a state of emergency, whether under colonialism and royal rule, or military rule, with the exception of a few years.
At the beginning of the year of the 2011 revolution, Egyptians breathed a sigh of relief after the lifting of the state of emergency and the revival of hopes for normal governance and a modern state, but the winds turned against the revolution, so the state of emergency returned, to be imposed on Egyptians again in April 2017.
From its name, the state of emergency seems to be an exception to the rule, since it is a state that deals with “emergency” in normal life. However, Egypt was an exception to the rule of the past years. Despite this, human rights defenders hope that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s announcement to end the state of emergency is a real start to improving the conditions of freedom in the country.
While observers say that the state of emergency has become an established rule in laws that restrict freedoms, some also dispute the legality of this repeal against detainees.
How do detainees benefit?
In this context, human rights lawyer Khaled Ali explained that defendants in political cases whose trials are still ongoing will not benefit from the lifting of the state of emergency, except for those who have not yet been brought to trial under Articles 19 and 20 of the Emergency Law No. 162 of 1958.
In a post published on his Facebook page, the lawyer and former candidate for the presidency stated that the cases that are still under investigation and the prosecutor’s office has not made a decision to transfer them to trial, when they are transferred, the court will be before the regular court, as regards decisions under the state of emergency. By transfer to the emergency state security court, it will remain in the hands of this court and the emergency law will apply to it.
The same last rule applies to cases where the military governor has refused to ratify the judgments rendered and decided to reconsider them and the trial will be repeated in the extraordinary court in accordance with the procedures of the extraordinary law.
For his part, Ahmed Helmi, a lawyer specializing in the cases of detainees, said that the defendants’ lawyers will have no choice but to challenge the unconstitutionality of the texts in future sessions, which will decide to continue the trial of the defendants in the Supreme State Security Courts under the emergency law.
Regarding the suffering of detainees and their lawyers due to the state of emergency, lawyer Osama Bayoumi says that the biggest suffering among lawyers and prisoners on trial was the inability to appeal the decision, whatever they were. The best hope was to receive a complaint submitted by the accused’s lawyer to the military governor, who would consider it as he saw fit, either by annulment, abatement or ratification, in the absence of a guarantee of the accused’s rights.
On his Facebook page, Bayum went on to say that the constitution guarantees defendants will be brought to trial at several levels, where the verdict is followed by an appeal and then a cassation of the decision, which does not happen in exceptional trials held under emergency conditions.
Bayum believed that detainees who had not been transferred to court would benefit from the repeal of the state of emergency by appearing before ordinary, non-exceptional trials, but the repeal would not hasten their release from detention centers, given that their detention is renewed under the law that approves the extension of pretrial detention and they are not under the law of imprisonment.
In this regard, the head of the Center for the Independence of the Justice and Legal Profession, Nasser Amin, said that the special measures provided by the emergency law, such as restrictions on freedom of assembly or demonstration, censorship of newspapers, publications and media, evacuation of some places or curfew in some places, will remain in force.
In press statements, Amin explained that special measures will remain in force not by the emergency law, but by other approved laws such as: demonstrations, press and media organization, fight against terrorism and terrorist entities, as well as executive decisions issued by the President of the Republic or the Prime Minister.
He added that this would mean legalizing the continued imposition of a state of emergency and that the government had in recent years moved articles of the emergency law into permanent laws.
great powers
The Constitution of Egypt, which was approved in 2014, states in Article (154) that the declaration of a state of emergency in the country is in accordance with Emergency Law No. (162), which was issued in 1958.
The law empowered the armed forces and the police to take necessary measures to counter the threats of terrorism, maintain security throughout the country, protect public and private property, and save lives of citizens.
The Emergency Law gives the President of the Republic the right to take special measures, including the power to impose security on the military, restrict the freedom of meeting, movement and movement of people from relevant agencies in certain places or times, transfer of accused to state security courts and curfew in some areas.
It also empowers the relevant agencies to monitor all kinds of communications and control newspapers, bulletins, publications, editorials, drawings and all means of expression, propaganda and advertising before they are published, confiscate them, confiscate them and close down their places of printing.
According to the law, the cases that must be relied on for the imposition of emergency include a state of war or a situation threatening the outbreak of war, internal disturbances, public disasters, or the spread of an epidemic.
The law also gives the president and the government the power to determine the opening and closing hours of public shops, confiscate any movable property or property, impose security measures on companies and institutions, evacuate or isolate certain areas, organize transportation, and limit and define transportation between different zones.
expansion
In the past five years, between renewals and extensions, human rights demands have continued to invalidate the law, which gives broad powers to the security services.
This was supposed to be the 19th time that the state of emergency has been extended for another 3 months under Sisi’s rule.
was established The state of emergency imposed in 2017 following incidents targeting two churches in Alexandria and Tanta (North) resulted in dozens of deaths and injuries and has since been renewed every 3 months with parliamentary approval.
The law gives the President of the Republic the right to declare a state of emergency after receiving the conclusion of the Council of Ministers and obliges him later, within 7 days, to submit it to the House of Representatives and with the approval of the majority of the members of the House for its adoption. The President of the Republic is also the one who declares the state of emergency and declares its end.
The law limits the extension of the state of emergency to a period of no more than 3 months, and it can only be renewed after the approval of two-thirds of the people’s representatives for a similar period, to end if the parliament refuses to approve it.
Opponents say the government was prolonging the state of emergency through a legal trick that violates the spirit of the constitution and the law, declaring a state of emergency a few days after the end of the second trimester, as if it were declaring a state of emergency again and not extending it.
The cassation lawyer Issam al-Islambul believed that the decisions to extend the constitution twice are “falsification of the constitution”.
Al-Islambul continued in a press statement: “Leaving and re-declaring a state of emergency a day after its end is a kind of fraud and this situation can continue and be a sharp attack on rights and freedoms.
He emphasized that when the constitutional legislator wanted to set the state of emergency for 3 months, which could be extended for another 3 months, he aimed “not to preserve the conditions that preceded the revolution, when the state of emergency lasted for almost 30 years.”
History of the state of emergency
Throughout its modern history, Egypt has known a state of emergency as a state of war. The British colonizers started it in 1914, then the 1923 constitution was issued, which put the power to declare and abolish the state in the hands of the king, with the supervision of the parliament.
Martial law was again imposed in the country in World War II from 1939-1943, and was later lifted and re-imposed with the entry of the Egyptian army into Palestine against Zionist gangs in 1948.
Following the events of the Cairo Fire in January 1952, martial law was again imposed and continued until army officers moved to overthrow King Farouk on 23 July 1952. It remained under its name of “Martial Law” until it was first changed to its current name of “State of Emergency” in 1956 with the tripartite aggression against Egypt.
Egypt entered a prolonged state of emergency for 13 years after the June 1967 war, even 18 months before the assassination of late President Anwar Sadat. It was imposed again, but this time it was for 30 years, the length of the rule of the late President Hosni Mubarak, who continued to believe that repealing it would mean the end of it, as it did with Sadat when he revoked it in his final days.
The renewal of the state of emergency immediately after the revolution was characterized by short periods. The first use of the state of emergency came after demonstrators stormed the Israeli embassy in Cairo in September 2011, and it lasted until the following May, when the military council that ruled the country at the time prepared to hand over power to civilians after the first presidential election in 2012.
During the late President Mohamed Morsi’s years in power, he was forced to partially impose a month-long state of emergency in the Channel Cities of the east following violence in the region on the anniversary of the revolution.
In August 2013, after the fall of Rabaa’s sit-in, interim President Adly Mansour declared a month-long state of emergency, during which the situation was enforced as the law says, and sometimes harshly, by closing shops in the evening, curfews and curfews on the streets, and expanding citizen detention. In the violence-ridden East Sinai.
Source: Egyptian media + island + Social media sites
