Special courts will be set up, more pre-trial detentions ordered and hefty fines given for “false” media reports under the legislation passed by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
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The law gives the police and prosecutors additional powers for combating terrorism, and provides for death penalties and life sentences for those convicted of forming, financing or leading terrorist cells. The law also imposes a minimum of five years in prison for the “promotion, directly or indirectly, of any perpetration of terrorist crimes, verbally or in writing or by any other means”. The original draft of the law was amended following domestic and global outcry after it initially called for imprisonment for such an offence.
The new law, it said last week, would allow Egyptian authorities to “take extreme measures that would usually be invoked during a state of emergency”.
President Sisi had promised in June to implement the new laws after Egypt’s prosecutor general was killed in a vehicle bombing in Cairo in late June.
The al-Sisi government argues they are necessary to deal with not only a two-year insurgency from deposed Muslim Brotherhood forces, but also new threats from the Islamic State, which has been muscling into the North Sinai region. “The law will have an effect on the public sphere and peaceful opposition activities more than terrorists and violent groups, who don’t care anyway and disregard the laws”, he said.
Jamal Eid, a human rights activist and the director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, said the laws had ushered in a “republic of darkness” in Egypt. The legislation equates terrorism and “any criticism or dissenting voices, or acts that are not to the state’s liking”, he tweeted.
Dalia Fahmy, an assistant professor at Long Island University and a member of the Egyptian Rule of Law Association, said that any media “that defies the national narrative, will be fined”.
Egypt has been struggling with unrest since then-army chief Sisi overthrew Mursi, an Islamist who become the country’s first democratically elected president following Mubarak’s ouster. There was no claim of responsibility, but Mr. Sisi blamed it on the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, an allegation the group denied. Thousands of alleged Islamist supporters have been jailed and scores have been sentenced to death, including Mursi and other senior Brotherhood figures. The military spokesman has warned local media against using foreign media reports.
Egypt has not had a parliament since the dissolution of its 2012 assembly.
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Under the laws introduced on Monday, trials for suspected militants will be fast-tracked through special courts.
