Egypt bids adieu to emergency law

Egypt’s decades-old state of emergency came to an end on Thursday as its last renewal expired, the ruling military said, vowing to continue to “protect” the nation.

The military will continue its “national and historic responsibility, taking into account that the state of emergency has ended, in accordance with the constitutional declaration and with the law,” it said. It said it would continue in that role until it hands over power, as it has promised it would to an elected president by the end of June. A runoff between the two frontunners from the first round of the elction is to be held on June 16-17.

Egypt has been under a state of emergency continuously since president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981, allowing authorities to detain people without charge and try them in emergency security courts.

Parliament renewed the emergency law for two years in May 2010 when now ousted president Hosni Mubarak was still in power, but limited its application to terrorism and drug crimes.

The military, which took charge after Mubarak’s overthrow in February 2011, at first extended the law to include strikes but then said it would apply only to “thuggery”.

A constitutional declaration ratified in a referendum in March last year gave the military the responsibility to “protect” the country but said only parliament had the right to proclaim a state of emergency, at the executive’s request.