A major residual of Egypt’s Cold War history is the country’s Emergency Law.
Emergency Law No. 162 of 1958 sharply circumscribes any non-governmental political activity. As seen in the video above, it was extended for two more years on May 11, 2010. It is one of the major grievances of the January 2011 protestors. (If you can’t see the video above, click on Egypt’s Emergency Law.)
The decades-old regulations were put in place after the assasination of Anwar Sadat, the former Egyptian president almost 30 years ago.
Now the government has decided to lift some of the original restrictions, and says that the law would only apply to terror and drug cases.
Analysts argue, though, that the latest step is a legal ploy that masks the law’s violation of basic human rights.
The law has remained in effect since 1967, except for an 18-month break in 1980. The emergency was imposed during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and reimposed following the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981.
The Emergency Law has been continuously extended every three years since. In 2006, President Hosni Mubarak promised reforms including repealing the Emergency Law, and replacing it with other measures. Instead, the law was renewed.
Key provisions of the law include:
Article 1: The government may declare a state of emergency across Egypt or in a specified region, whenever there is a danger to security or public order, including war, disturbances, disaster, or epidemic.
Article 2: State of emergency be announced and decided by the President of Egypt, and include the reason, region covered, and date enacted.
Article 3: When declared, the president can include the following measures:
- Restrictions on freedom of people to gather
- Restrict movement of people
- Arrest suspects or people who pose a danger
- Arrest and search people and places without restrictions
- Require any person to perform any act
- Control communications, newspapers, publications, and all means of expression prior to publications, and seize and shut down places of printing
- Seize any property and impose security on companies and institutions, and postpone debts and obligations for what is seized or imposed by the government
- Decommission weapons and ammunitions
- Evacuate regions or cut-off transportation between areas
The law has remained in effect since 1967, except for an 18-month break in 1980. The emergency was imposed during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and reimposed following the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981.
The Emergency Law has been continuously extended every three years since. In 2006, President Hosni Mubarak promised reforms including repealing the Emergency Law, and replacing it with other measures. Instead, the law was renewed.
A Cold War Timeline of events in Egypt presents insight into happenings that authorities use to support the continuation of the Emergency Law.
September 1947: Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin’s Politburo colleague, makes a speech that assesses the post World War II global situation.
Zhdanov argues that the world is divided into two camps, an “imperialist and anti-democratic camp” and an “anti-imperialist and democratic camp.”
The principal driving force of the imperialist camp was the United States. Egypt, while located in a region of vital strategic importance to the West, was thought to be sympathetic to the anti-imperialist cause.
July 23, 1952: The Egyptian Revolution of 1952 (also known as the July 23 Revolution and the Officers’ Revolution) begins with a military coup d’etat by a group of young nationalist army officers known as the Free Officers Movement. The highly corrupt Egyptian king, King Farouk is deposed. Support coalesces behind a young officer, Gamal Abdel Nasser.
September 27, 1955: President Nasser announces that Egypt will be buying advanced weapons from Czechoslovakia. His decision was spurred by clashes with Israel as well as by the West’s unwillingness to sell him weapons.
July 26, 1956: Nasser announced the seizure of all the assets and facilities of the Suez Canal Company.
October 29, 1956: With French and British backing, the Israelis invade the Sinai, seizing strategic positions and posing an ostensible threat to the recently nationalized Suez Canal. For details see our post Egypt, Suez, and the Dynamics of Superpower Intervention in the Middle East.
The crisis saw the beginning of an era when the Middle East region was increasingly buffeted by Cold War geopolitics and leftist radicalism.
The Suez Crisis was “the first case of a Third World radical taking Soviet arms and playing the anti-Western card.” Nasser becomes a major world figure and a leader of the nonaligned movement.
January 1957: In an address to Congress, President Eisenhower announces the “Eisenhower Doctrine,” a policy of American support for Middle Eastern states threatened by aggression from “International Communism.”
November 1966: Egypt and Syria sign a mutual defense treaty which proves fatal to Egypt when the Syrians are blamed for stepped up terrorist attacks on Israel.
Spring of 1967: Moscow warns Egypt that an Israeli attack on Syria is imminent. Nasser expels UN peacekeeping forces from the Sinai and reoccupies it with Egyptian troops. Syria and Israel mobilized. Egypt blockades the Strait of Tiran.
Early June 1967: Israel retaliates, and defeats Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in six days and occupying large sections of Arab territory.
The war turns the Arab-Israeli confrontation into a direct superpower confrontation.
1967: Nasser gives the Soviets virtual control over seven air bases and preferential access to four harbors in the Mediterranean and one in the Red Sea.
The Soviets rebuild the Egyptian and Syrian military forces.
November 22, 1967: The United Nations unanimously adopts Resolution 242.
The resolution speaks of the “inadmissability of the acquistion of territory by war” and calls for “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” The resolution is deliberately ambiguous about the extent of Israeli withdrawal required.
September 28, 1970: Nasser dies.
October 15, 1970: Anwar Sadat, a senior member of the Free Officers Group, succeeds Nasser as president.
July 18, 1972: Sadat terminates the mission of 15,000 Soviet military personnel in Egypt and reclaims all Soviet military installations and equipment set up in Egypt since 1967. He gives the Soviets a week to leave the country.
Oct0ber 6-23, 1973: Sadat takes military action to gain American notice. He instigates the 1973 Yom Kippur War to create an international crisis that the US would have to respond to.
November 7, 1973: President Sadat and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger meet for the first time. Sadat tells Kissinger that he is ready to end Egypt’s conflict with Israel. Learn more about Sadat and the US in our previous post Egypt Transfers Loyalty From the USSR to the US in the Middle of the Cold War.
1975: Sadat formally reopens the Suez Canal. A US aircraft carrier leads the first ceremonial convoy of ships through the waterway.
March 1975: Egyptian-Israeli negotiations break down over the disengagement of forces in the Sinai.
September 1, 1975: Egypt and Israel conclude a second agreement – the second Sinai accord. They pledge not to go to war and to negotiate toward a final peace. There was a more significant Israeli withdrawal in the Sinai and permission was granted for Israeli civilian cargoes to use the Suez canal.
November 1977: Sadat visits Jerusalem for the first face-to-face contact ever between Egyptian and Israeli leaders. This paves the way for the Camp David negotiations.
September 5-17, 1978: Negotiations at Camp David produce the outline of a peace treaty, a total Israeli withdrawal from Egyptian territory, and the framework for a transitional period of autonomy for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
October 6, 1981: President Sadat is assassinated by Islamic fundamentalists.
October 14, 1981: Vice President Hosni Mubarak assumes the presidency.
November 1986: Seeking better relations with Egypt, the Soviet Union reschedules a large amount of Egypt’s debt.
1989: Egypt is readmitted as a full member of the Arab League, and the League’s headquarters are relocated to their original location in Cairo.
Interestingly, this past Sunday, January 30, 2011, Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League, says he wants to see a multi-party democracy emerge in Egypt but could not say how soon that might happen.
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