CAIRO, Egypt, April 30 — The Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, pushed through a two-year extension of an emergency law through Parliament today, a law that for 24 years has effectively allowed the government to detain prisoners indefinitely and without charge.
Of course, there is one key difference between Mubarak's gambit and the typical war power grabs of the Bush administration, and it's contained in the first seven words of the story's next paragraph:
In asking parliament to approve the extension, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif said that the emergency law would eventually be replaced with a provision that focused exclusively on terrorism, as the president repeatedly promised during his re-election campaign last year. But, Mr. Nazif said, devising a new law will take time and Egypt cannot afford to wait with the emergency law set to expire at the end of May.
"We will never use the emergency law against the Egyptian people," Mr. Nazif said to the crowded parliamentary chamber. "We will use it only to protect the citizens and face the terror cells that did not quell until now."
Sound familiar? So will this:
But the extension was widely criticized by political opposition groups, human rights groups and ordinary citizens on the streets here, who said it demonstrated that the government was intent on protecting itself, not the people. Officials had hinted days ago that they would push for renewal, and so could not credibly claim the decision was in response to the three terrorist attacks in Sinai last week that left more than two dozen people dead and many more seriously injured.
And now, here's Mr. Mubarak taking a page from the Bush dislexicon:
"There is a need for a firm and decisive law that eliminates terrorism and uproots its threats," Mr. Mubarak said in a speech last July. "A law that protects national security and ensures stability. A law that provides a legislative substitute to combat terrorism and replaces the current emergency law."
Boy, are our countries similar, with one small exception:
Since his lopsided victory, with more than 88 percent of the votes cast, his government has used its security forces to beat and shoot voters trying to cast ballots in parliamentary elections for opposition candidates; sentenced an opposition political leader, Ayman Nour, to five years in prison; delayed by two years local elections; and sought to punish judges who charged fraud during past elections; and denied requests to create new political parties.
At least we haven't come to that ... at least not yet ... although Mr. Bush and Mr. Mubarak increasingly, as Bobby and Whitney would say, "have something in common":
On Saturday the authorities arrested several dozen young men from political opposition groups who had been hanging up signs that read "No for emergency law," and "Together against extension of the emergency law."
In our democracy, you don't get arrested for hanging up signs. You get arrested for wearing opposition T-shirts.
<%
dim done
done = request.form("done")
if done = "" then
done = "No"
%>
Tell a friend
<%
Else
if request.form("done") = "Yes" then
'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
email = request.form("email")
Set sendmail = Server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
'put the webmaster address here
sendmail.From = "webmaster@aspbasics.com"
'The mail is sent to the address entered in the previous page.
sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
vbCrlf & url & vbCrlf
'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
sendmail.Importance = 1
sendmail.Send 'Send the email!
response.redirect Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
'Response.write ("Sent to ") & email
End if
End if
%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
