Around two weeks ago, the government managed to have the state of emergency extended for another two years. However, in an attempt to polish its image, the government introduced two new articles to the law to restrict its implementation to cases of terrorism and drug dealing.
Nevertheless, even with the introduction of these two articles, nothing much has changed. We have been listening to the same assurances for the past 30 years. Still, official analysts assured us that oral pledges could not be compared to a binding piece of written legislation.
Two days ago, security forces in Damanhour arrested eight activists who were distributing pro-reform statements. Such arrests violate very basic rights stipulated by the Egyptian Constitution, and only the Emergency Law could provide grounds for those arrests.
The Damanhour arrests indicate the following:
1) The state of political mobility supporting change is still active on the ground. The government is wary of the interaction of the ordinary citizen with political activists, and that explains why it resorts to exceptional legislation.
2) The government is lying to the people, because its current behavior provides proof that it doesn’t intend to restrict the implementation of the Emergency Law to drugs and terrorism.
3) Arresting those activists and then releasing them after hours of interrogations was intended to intimidate the people and discourage them from engaging in political activism, so long as such activism favors the opposition and doesn’t serve to maintain the status-quo.
Are the people going to give in to the security apparatus? I believe not. The ordinary citizen is starting to see a real opportunity for change and is ready to pay the price for it.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
