Cairo: Backers and opponents of Egypt’s army-backed authorities are united in condemning a draft bill, which the government says is designed to prevent disruptive protests.
The measure, already approved by the government, gives security agencies the right to block, postpone or relocate demonstrations and bans sit-ins. Protests close to key state institutions and diplomatic missions will be illegal.
“This law is inapplicable because the common belief among Egyptians now is that they cannot obtain their rights without exercising pressure through demonstrations and sit-ins,” said Abdul Gafar Shukri, a leading member of the pro-government National Salvation Front.
“It is important for the government to realise that demonstrators in Egypt now do not belong only to the Muslim Brotherhood. There are also workers, teachers and the unemployed who all suffer problems, which have yet to be solved,” he told semi-official newspaper Al Ahram.
The Brotherhood and its Islamist allies have been staging protests since the army’s July 3 overthrow of president Mohammad Mursi. The Islamist leader’s supporters have denounced his ouster as a military coup and vowed to persist in protesting until he is reinstated. More than 1,000 people have been killed in Egypt since Mursi’s toppling in clashes involving his loyalists, opponents and security forces.
“The government should have offered this proposed law on regulations demonstrations for public debate before approving it and referring it to the interim president,” said Mahmoud Shamel, an activist in the anti-Islamist Revolutionary Coalition.
“In its present form, the law seems aimed at stifling freedoms, which will not be possible after the two revolutions carried out against two dictators in nearly three years,” he told Gulf News. Shamel was referring to the 2011 ouster of Hosni Mubarak after a popular uprising and the army’s toppling of Mursi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president after massive protests against his one-year-old rule.
The government says it is waging a war against terrorism, citing a series of attacks targeting mainly security forces.
“The government’s approval of this law confirms that Egypt is heading for a dictatorship worse than that of Mubarak and [Jamal] Nasser,” said Khalid Saeed, a spokesman for the ultra-conservative Salafist Front, referring to two Egyptian leaders in whose era Islamists were harshly oppressed. “We have repeatedly warned against this since Mursi’s removal,” he added.
Rights advocates have slammed the proposed law as radically restricting the right to protest. “It is a shame for any authorities to draft an oppressive law and try to coax public opinion into believing that it targets a certain group,” said Jamal Eid, the director of the non-governmental organisation, the Arab Network for Human Rights Information.
Mursi’s Brotherhood has repeatedly said it does not recognise the military-installed government and its measures.
