Egypt ranked eighth among 142 countries in Gallup's 2019 Global Law and Order report which measures how safe citizens feel. The report's findings are based on the answers of 152,000 adults worldwide to a standard set of questions that include how safe they feel walking alone in the streets at night, what level of confidence they have in the police and whether any family members had been the victims of assault or theft in the previous 12 months. Responses to the questions were tallied to compute an index score between zero and 100. Egypt scored 92, up from 88 last year, placing it on an equal footing with Switzerland, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. “The improved ranking doesn't mean there is less crime on the streets,” cautions Al-Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies researcher Gamal Abdel-Gawad. “What it does mean is that people are feeling safer.” Following the ouster as president of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi Egypt was swept up in a wave of violence that included the targeting of churches and terrorist attacks in both Sinai and on the mainland. In February last year Comprehensive Operation Sinai 2018 was launched to end terrorism. Hundreds of extremists have been either killed or arrested, tons of explosives confiscated and many terrorist bases destroyed. “Egyptians have been through an awful lot in recent years and their experiences since 2011 will have made them more appreciative of security than some other nationalities,” says Abdel-Gawad. “The state's heavy investment in security, which it has consistently prioritised, has clearly boosted confidence.” Although public sentiment is notoriously difficult to quantify, the report's findings have proved consistent. Singapore, with a score of 97, has consistently topped the list. At the other end of the spectrum Afghanistan got the lowest score of 38 this year. Last year it was tied with Venezuela in the bottom spot. Just 13 per cent of Afghans say they feel safe walking in their area alone at night, down from 20 per cent in 2018. The optimism of Egyptians comes at a time when confidence in law enforcement across the region is decreasing. According to the report, confidence in the police across the Middle East and North Africa has fallen by one percentage point over the last 12 months. With an average score of 44, Latin America has less confidence in its local police than any other region. That half of the world's 10 lowest-scoring police confidence nations are in Latin America is consistent with recent trends recorded by the report. *A version of this article appears in print in the 28 November, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
