CAIRO - Egypt's state of emergency will be in place until June 30, 2012 and reports that the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) had to hold a referendum in order to extend them are 'baseless', a military official said Wednesday. "The SCAF did not extend or declare the Emergency Law, which has already in place since June 2010 and endorsed by the Parliament," said General Adel El-Mursi, the head of the Military Judiciary Authority. He added that what had happened was that Field Marshal Hussein Tanatwi amended some articles of the Emergency Law, applying it on more cases. "Tantawi practiced his authority according to the constitutional declaration ratified on March 30," el-Mursi said. The semi-official newspaper Al-Ahram reported Wednesday that the SCAF is looking into a proposal to call for a public referendum on a suitable electoral system and extending the Emergency Law. Tareq el-Bishri, the head of a constitutional panel which prepared amendments included in the current Constitutional Declaration, dropped a bombshell, when he described the referendum as being a must. "According to Article 59 of the Constitutional Declaration, the Emergency Law cannot be extended until a referendum is held," el-Bishri, a former deputy chief of the State Council Courts, told Al-Jazeera Mubasher Misr satellite channel in an interview. He added that the SCAF is to blame for delaying the polls. The Freedom and Justice Party's deputy chairman, Saad el-Katatni, slammed a meeting between Sami Anan, the deputy chief of the SCAF, and representatives of various political parties and movements on Sunday as a “waste of time”. El-Katatni said that the council ignored suggestions made by political parties and followed the meeting with a vague statement that "it will consider the suggestions and nothing more". An agreement on a transitional plan has so far eluded the political players. The Muslim Brotherhood, the country's best organised movement, insists on quick parliamentary elections. In July, the Brotherhood and other Islamist groups organised a massive rally in Cairo to protest demands by secular groups for a declaration of constitutional principles prior to elections.
