Dina Ezzat reports on how the state of emergency survived a revolution Mona Mina and Hamdi Hassan are mid-career medical doctors. The first lives in Cairo, a Copt who places herself squarely on the left. She is an activist in the Doctors' Syndicate. The second lives in Alexandria, a high profile member of the long outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Like every other Egyptian under the age of 53, Mina and Hassan have lived their entire lives, almost, under emergency rule. For Hassan, a member of the group seen as the worst bugbear of every president who has ruled Egypt since the monarchy was toppled in 1952 -- despite short-lived honeymoons with each of them -- this has meant frequent detention, particularly under Mubarak. The last time he was arrested under the emergency laws was on 28 January, the Friday of Anger, along with nine other Brotherhood leaders in Alexandria. Mina has escaped such direct infringement on her rights till now. Her ordeals under the emergency law have been different. What it has meant is that she faced an uphill struggle to interest colleagues, both young and old, in syndicate activities to protect their rights. The majority refused to become involved, fearing any action that might be seen to challenge the authorities. Today, Mina and Hamdi are dismayed by the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces' (SCAF) decision to re-invoke the emergency law. Both view the decision as an attempt to undermine civil activists and have no faith in promises that it will be used only to target criminal activities. Why revive a law, ostensibly to curb criminals and drug traffickers, when that same law, in force for 30 years, patently failed to achieve these goals, asks Hassan. While emergency laws have been imposed in Egypt several times since World War I they were mostly restricted to times of war or extreme political turmoil. Until the Tripartite Aggression on Egypt in 1956, that is. Gamal Abdel-Nasser suspended emergency rule for only a handful of the years between 1954 and 1970. His successor, Anwar El-Sadat, suspended them for just a few months of his decade in office. Despite promises to do so in his early weeks in office Sadat's successor, Hosni Mubarak, never lifted them. The SCAF may have promised an end to emergency rule ahead of parliamentary elections but it remained ambiguous over the fate of the state of emergency. This ambiguity continued throughout the referendum on constitutional amendments and the subsequent constitutional declaration. Some heavy-weight constitutional experts, including Tarek El-Bishri, head of the committee that drafted the constitutional amendments, now insist that the extension of the state of emergency is incompatible with the text of the amended constitution. Others argue that while it does not directly violate the amendments it is a clear violation of the spirit of the 25 January Revolution and of earlier promises made by the SCAF. "What the SCAF said is that the state of emergency would be lifted. Now we are in a situation where it is being extended, allegedly to reduce crime rates and drug trafficking. If the SCAF is really seeking to combat crime and drug trafficking the most obvious course would have been to force the police to end their shameful dereliction of duty that began when they abandoned all responsibility on 28 January," says Hassan. "This is a humiliation for every single person who went to Tahrir to call for an end to tyranny," says Mina Nagui, an activist in his mid-20s who was seriously wounded during the early days of the 25 January Revolution. "It is a humiliation for those who were killed by the police, acting within the remit of the emergency laws, and for those who survived the shooting on unarmed protesters." Nagui expresses the opinion of a great many other activists and analysts when he portrays emergency rule as the cornerstone of the Mubarak regime. "It stands for everything the 25 January Revolution was against. The first demand made by demonstrators in Tahrir Square on 25 January was an end the state of emergency." Rumours over the circumstances surrounding the decision to re-invoke the emergency laws abound. Some say Minister of Interior Mansour Eissawi approached the SCAF and argued that invoking emergency provisions would encourage police officers to return to work after abandoning their posts because they feared public anger at their actions. Others argue that the reintroduction of extraordinary measures was basically a result of the military mindet of those -- members of the SCAF -- who now rule Egypt. "It does not matter much who actually proposed the initiative, whether it was the SCAF or Eissawi, who seems determined to revive the practices of Habib El-Adli [Mubarak's last, and now imprisoned, minister of interior]. The fact is that the police have been invited to go back to their old ways," says Hassan. But the demand never to be held responsible for their actions, which the emergency laws effectively condone, are not restricted to the police and security forces, argues Mona Seif, an activist heavily involved in lobbying for a halt to civilian referrals to military trial. It extends to the SCAF itself. "From the start the SCAF was loath to abandon Mubarak-style autocracy. Now they don't even bother to hide it. There is no attempt at window dressing anymore. The SCAF is being clear about what it has in mind. In response, we too must be clear." What the public must do, says Seif, is keep up the pressure. "We have no choice but to continue with what we are doing, say no when we disagree, demonstrate and go on strike." Public pressure, argues Nagui, must include much greater activity across the social media, with bloggers cataloguing each incident of SCAF malpractice. "This will, in the end, be more efficient than regular Friday marches. It sends out a clear message, that we will not succumb, will not give up on our demands. And ultimately, there is a limit to the number of activists they can arrest." SCAF members and their aides have said repeatedly that there are no plans to detain civilians for their political activities. "This is not a goal. We are faced with a situation where the authority of the state is being challenged in a way that could undermine stability," says a source in the prime minister's office. "Many people tell us we have to be firmer. We have received written requests from ordinary citizens to plead with the SCAF to restore order into their daily lives. The worries of average Egyptians are very different from those of the politicised class." But for Mina, it is an attempt to improve the quality of life of the average citizen that fuels her opposition to emergency rule. "I'm not talking about political liberties, or the rights of syndicates under the emergency laws. I worry about the safety of every citizen. Too many have faced police brutality under the guise of the state of emergency." For Hassan, Mina, Seif and Nagui extending the state of emergency will always be an aggressively repressive act. There are hundreds of laws in place, they point out, targeting criminals and drug dealers. So why aren't they invoked? The answer, all four agree, is clear. It is because existing, none emergency legislation, cannot be so easily manipulated to come down hard on activists and curb the wave of strikes and social demands that neither the SCAF nor the government seems to have any clue how to meet. On that front, however, even stringent emergency laws might fail. "There is nothing, nothing whatsoever that can stop us from demonstrating or going on strike if our legitimate demands are left un-attended," says Nader Habib, a labour activist in the industrial powerhouse of Mahalla. Textile workers may have decided to suspend calls for an open ended strike after receiving promises that their demands would be met but the strikes will go head, says Habib, "if the deal is not honoured". For workers in Mahalla the state of emergency is of little consequence. "During the Mubarak years, when state security knew our every move and eavesdropped on every word that was said we still managed to arrange demonstrations and strikes. We do not intend to change that now." "Our focus now is on legislative elections," says Hassan. "We will fight for a parliament that will remove the state of emergency once and for all." Political scientist Mustafa Kamel El-Sayed argues that there is not a single convincing argument in favour of extending the state of emergency. When, he asks, has security been improved as a result of applying emergency provisions? It is a moot point, given Egypt's recent history of riots, of extremist activity, and the singular fact that Mubarak was toppled when millions of Egyptians took to the streets in the face of draconian security provisions. The emergency laws, says El-Sayed, serve only to muddy channels of communication between Egypt's rulers and the ruled, recalling memories of the Mubarak years that a majority of Egyptians are keen to forget. The only clear message revivifying the supposedly suspended state of emergency sends to citizens, El-Sayed argues, is that the SCAF has not moved beyond the mind-set of the Mubarak years. "It insists on keeping the Shura Council; it insisted on making constitutional amendments rather than drafting a new constitution after Mubarak and now it is bringing back the state of emergency. What we are seeing is a perpetuation of the same old legacy."
