Worse than Mubarak: Egypt's new Constitution and the police state

By Mara Revkin, 17 February 2014
A member of the security forces in Cairo, January 28, 2014. (Amr Abdallah Dalsh / Courtesy Reuters)
A member of the security forces in Cairo, January 28, 2014. (Amr Abdallah Dalsh / Courtesy Reuters)
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Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"></w> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"></w> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <mce:style><! /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} --> <!--[endif] --> </p><p><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Egypt is not the first country in the world to declare a “war on terror,” but it is one of the only nations to have written counterterrorism into its constitution. Last month, an overwhelming 98.1 percent of voters approved Egypt’s new charter in a referendum marred by a heavy-handed military campaign to stifle dissent. The new constitution further marginalizes Islamists from political life and enhances the powers of the military and security services by, among other things, banning all political activity based on religion and giving the military veto authority over the president’s choice of defense minister for the next eight years. But as problematic as those measures are, one of the constitution’s most alarming sections has been overlooked: an unprecedented counterterrorism clause that lays the legal foundation for a police state that is a military dictatorship in all but name.&nbsp;<div>[toc hidden:1]</div>
Read the full article here: Foreign Affairs

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