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Protecting human rights in the fight against terrorism in Egypt
Speech delivered by Hafez Abu Seada at the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) Biennial Conference held in Berlin, 27th - 29th August 2004.
Introduction
The Middle East has been afflicted by terrorism since the 1970s and the region is now one of the most seriously affected regions globally.
A study by the Council of Arab Foreign Ministers in 1997 found that 53.4% of terrorist acts worldwide happened in the Middle East, 21.2% in Asia, 7.8% in Africa, 2.5 in Latin America and 1.1% in North and Middle America. Terrorism in the Arab region reached its peak in the early 1990s but had declined by the end of the 20th century. The International Institute for Strategic Studies in London mentioned in its 1999 annual report that the Middle East suffered 31 terrorist attacks, in comparison with 690 in Asia and 185 in Africa.
In the last few years many Arab countries, including Egypt have been subject to terrorist acts motivated by various philosophies and agendas. Multifarious plans and strategies have been employed to counter these acts. Despite the fact that terrorism has all but been eliminated in certain Arab countries including Egypt - whether due to the success of suppression measures or political reform initiatives - there still exists in force an armoury of laws that restrict freedoms and violate rights in the name of the fight against terrorism.
There is no doubt that the events of the 11th September 2001 were the apex of global terrorism in terms of the human and material loss caused and the change provoked in governments' (particularly the US government's) views of terrorism and counter-terrorism measures. Certain Arab countries used these events as an opportunity to issue counter terrorism legislation which embodied wide reaching human rights violations.
Arab Governments have employed various tools in the fight against terrorism:
Legislation
- such as the Money Laundering Law used to freeze suspects' bank accounts (following Washington's request to the United Nations that it monitor the implementation of such a law in every country) and the Criminal Procedures Act (in Morocco) which is the first Moroccan legislation to deal with bugging, recording of telephone calls and extradition agreements etc. The danger is that the government majorities controlling many Arab parliaments enable ruling regimes to enact any legislation they wish.
Security through suppression and repression
The Egyptian Government continues to use the term "counter-terrorism" as a justification for its human rights violations despite the fact that there have been no acts of armed violence since 1997. It issues laws that restrict human rights as part of the wave of counter-terrorism measures invoked after the events of 11th September under the pretext that such terrorist activity could affect Egypt. Without any political or legal justification the Egyptian Government this year referred to the preparations for war in Iraq as a reason for renewing the state of emergency which was scheduled to end in March 2003 but which has been extended until 2006.
This paper aims to expose the Egyptian Government's approach to dealing with terrorism and armed violence and to show to what extent terrorism suspects' trials violate the right to a fair trial. The paper will also discuss the effects of the Emergency Law on human rights in Egypt generally while focusing on the right to a fair trial and will consider the possibility of enacting counter-terrorism laws while simultaneously protecting human rights in Egypt.
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