In force since 2017, President al-Sisi lifts state of emergency

According to the Egyptian president there is reason to be congratulated: “Egypt has become, thanks to its great people and its loyal men, an oasis of security and stability in the region”. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi therefore announced Monday, on his official Facebook page, not to renew the state of emergency in his country.

Set up nationwide in April 2017 following bloody attacks claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) against Coptic churches – the main Christian minority in the Middle East – in the towns of Tanta and Alexandria, the state of emergency had since been renewed continuously.

Sinai curfew

It had also been set up in 2014 in the Sinai Peninsula, in the grip for years of an armed Islamist insurgency led by a local branch of ISIS. In this region, a curfew, starting in some districts in the north of the peninsula as early as 7 p.m., is also in effect. The Egyptian army and police have been carrying out a vast “anti-terrorism” operation in Sinai since February 2018, but also in parts of the Western Desert, between the Nile Valley and the border with Libya.

The state of emergency greatly expands police powers of arrest, surveillance, and may impose restrictions on freedom of movement. Human rights NGOs regularly denounce attacks on individual freedoms in the context of the state of emergency in Egypt, where the president has been leading, since coming to power in 2013, a fierce repression against all forms of opposition.

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