Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi said on Sunday that the country will have a new parliament by the end of 2015, calling on the armed forces and police to completely secure the voting process.
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Human rights groups voiced their opposition to the new legislation, pointing out it will be used to crush dissent and would choke independent media coverage of emerging terror groups.
Before the new law was ratified, Sisi said, the country faced difficulties in applying penalties on terrorists.
Al-Sissi promised harsh new laws to ensure that terrorists would be brought to justice quickly in the aftermath of the assassination in June of Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat.
Under the laws introduced on Monday, trials for suspected militants will be fast-tracked through special courts. They also impose the death penalty for anyone found guilty of setting up or leading a terrorist group, BBC reported. Financing a terrorist group will carry a life sentence. Inciting violence or creating websites deemed to spread terrorist messages will carry sentences of between five and seven years.
Journalists will be fined for contradicting the authorities’ version of any “terrorist” attack.
“This is taking us back to the Mubarak era and the 30-year state of emergency that helped push Egyptians to the streets in 2011”, Mohamed Elmessiry, Egypt researcher at Amnesty worldwide, said in a statement.
According to experts quoted by the newspaper, such law should enter into force as soon as possible, given the situation in the country and the forthcoming parliamentary elections.
Egypt has been facing the problem of Islamist insurgency since the past two years that aim to topple Sisi’s government.
Analysts say that attack was likely the work of one of the other Islamist insurgency groups in Egypt that are mostly active in the Sinai Peninsula.
The insurgency, which has killed hundreds of soldiers and police, has intensified since mid-2013 when then-army chief Sisi ousted President Mohamed Mursi, a top figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, after mass unrest against his rule.
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The new law gives stronger powers to prosecutors, and orders existing courts to set up special circuits for handling terrorism-related felonies and misdemeanors – a potentially ominous step that echoes the Mubarak-era State Security Court system.
