EGYPT: Governmental report says human rights have deteriorated

[bemildred]

---

Among a number of critical issues raised in the council's report was the continued implementation of the emergency law since 1981, changes to the constitution, and the approval of a new anti-terror law that allows President Hosni Mubarak to order any suspect to stand trial before military and state security courts.

"We praised the government when it vowed to end the implementation of emergency rule in 2005," Hossam Badrawi, the head of the NCHR group, told The Times. "But rather than fulfilling their promise, they extended the law for two more years in 2008."

The report, released Tuesday, covers human-rights practices in Egypt between 2006 and 2009 and has been sent to the United Nations in Geneva ahead of a discussion between Egypt and the U.N. in February 2010.

The report demands that the government cooperate with officials from the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare police officers, detainees and Egyptian jurists for a time when the emergency law, imposed following the assassination of President Anwar Sadat, would be lifted.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2009/09/egypt-governmental-human-rights-report-highlights-deficiencies.html