Egypt has pledged to lift emergency laws that grant security organs sweeping powers to arrest and detain suspects without recourse to the courts, the press reported on Thursday.
Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif declared the government’s intention to abrogate the laws that the opposition claimed were also being used against political opponents of the regime, in a speech to parliament late on Wednesday.
The government says it has invoked the laws, in place since the 1981 assassination of former president Anwar al-Sadat, only in specific cases such as its fight against suspected Islamist terrorists.
Nazif told parliament he had ordered the formation of a committee of experts to draft a terrorism law to replace the emergency laws, without saying when he expected the new law to come into force.
Parliament has renewed the measures every three years since 1981, ignoring opposition demands and calls from local and international human-rights groups that they be abrogated altogether.
The emergency laws were last extended in 2003 and are due to expire at the end of May.
They allow the government to detain anyone deemed to be threatening state security for renewable 45-day periods without court orders and also give military courts the power to try civilians.
Public demonstrations are banned under the emergency laws, which opponents also see as an attempt by the state to stifle basic freedoms, including the freedom of association. — Sapa-AFP