Egypt's 31-year emergency detention and arrest law ends
Source: USA Today
CAIRO (AP) – Egypt's notorious emergency law expired Thursday, ending 31 years of broad powers to detain and arrest for a police force accused of severely abusing its far-reaching authority.
Since former President Anwar Sadat's 1981 assassination, the security forces were empowered to detain and arrest people without charge, keep them locked up despite court releases and extract confessions under torture. Abuses almost always went unpunished. And at one point under the ousted regime of Hosni Mubarak, human rights groups said there were more than 10,000 people in detention — many of them disappearing in Egyptian prisons.
"This is huge," said Hossam Bahgat, a human rights activist who had campaigned for years to lift the hated law. "What is really crucial is the message. The security forces operated under a culture that told them they were constantly above the law. Now they need to abide by the existing legislation and they won't enjoy any extralegal powers."
Last year's popular uprising that drove Mubarak from power was partially fueled by anger over police abuses of power and protesters vented against the symbols of the security agencies. The lifting of the law was a key demand by the pro-democracy youth groups that engineered the uprising 15 months ago.
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-05-31/egypt-ends-detention-law/55316186/1
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