After the amendment of some of the articles in the first draft of the law approved by the cabinet in the beginning of last July a decree law number 94 for the year 2015 came out issuing an anti terrorism law dated August 15, 2015 and it was published in issue 33 repeated of the official newspaper.

As usual everyone was surprised by the law published in the official newspaper on Sunday August 16. Thus surfaced once more a wave of arguments, objections and fears that the first draft had also raised. The government was content with partial amendments of its project that had been done in response to the notes of the Higher Council of Judiciary that were worth noting. The government went back on items in its first draft that was considered an infringement on the judiciary and a retraction of its mandate. It also conceded in its amendments to the objections of journalists and their syndicate to the annulment of the prison sentences in article 35 (33 in the first draft) of the law. However it replaced this with an outrageous fine that no journalist or media institution can bare. More importantly, it retained the essence of this article in that it is a transgression on the freedom of journalism and the right to information. This amendment however, did not target the heart of the crisis that is reflected and aggravated by this law. It did not also respond to the core of the objections raised by several parties demanding that the law should not come out or at least be postponed as well as organizing a serious societal dialogue around it.

The Center for Trade Union and Worker Services wishes to confirm, once more, its adamant and steady position that cannot misinterpreted and stresses its condemnation of terrorism and its rejection whatever the justifications. It also stresses the monsterity that the law implies and the starch violation of human rights that it represents, foremost among which is the right to life and personal safety. We repeat what we had previously demanded; a comprehensive strategy to face terrorism based on democratic principles and opening the public domain and channels of societal dialogue. We also warn of the calls for vengeance and the fragmented vision that sees respect of human rights as an obstacle to the “decisive” confrontation with terrorism and that democracy is a luxury in a country that faces danger. Based upon all of the aforementioned the center opposes the anti terrorism law for the following:

• Defenders of the law usually face their opposers with the argument that it is similar to the anti terrorism law in other “democratic” countries. In reality the law is contradictory to what is common in such laws that are issued as temporary laws to deal with exceptional circumstances. The most dangers aspect of this law is that its exceptional laws became part and parcel of the general and permanent legal structure with all its components such as widening the scope of crimes and stricter penalties and disruption of the rules and bases that it is settled upon. Generally it is a state of doing away with the rule of law and a waste of the constitution, the ink of which is not yet dry. 
• Fighting terrorism should not be a reason to repeat and continue issuing new penal and procedural legislations and getting rid of constitutional guarantees, especially that the Egyptian penal law – with its amendments- deals with fighting terrorism in enough texts and jurisdictions. On the contrary we aspire to amending it in accordance with the development of the science of penalties and its more modern concept in democratic countries and in accordance with the new constitution.
• The law circumnavigates the established bases of jurisdiction and contains exceptional rulings that should not enter into the framework of public law where the penalty equates the actual committing of a terrorist crime and planning it or criminally agreeing to it which is in contradiction of the articles of the constitution itself. The law enhances the exceptional powers of the president as they are stated in the emergency law. It also enhances the escape from punishment by fortifying the executives contrary to what is established, in article 8 of the law “Those executing the law cannot be questioned if they use force to fulfill their duty or protect themselves from an eminent danger about to befall self or money. This is all in case the use of this right is necessary and within the strength necessary to avert danger”

The law in this incident is free of the bases and conditions present in the Egyptian penal code in terms of considering an incident a legal defense of one’s self and grants immunity to the police and opens the door to the committing of murder or torture outside of the law.

• The widening of the definition of a terrorist act and the use of flexible wording that is not clear in the content of the law may practically lead to the threatening of a number of basic human rights and freedoms:

That the right to freedom of opinion and dispersing and receiving information is not only threatened by article 35 “that raised a lot of arguments” while settling on a punishment against journalists and their institutions in case they publish news contrary to official statements. It is also threatened by the what is stated in article 28 “anyone who publicizes or prepares for publicizing, directly or indirectly, the committing of any terrorist crime whether by speech or writing or any other means. Indirect promotion includes the promotion of ideas or believes that call for the use of violence by any means stated in the previous paragraph of this article….” Could matters reach searching in thoughts… for ideas and not crimes to lead to court… How can the ideas and believes leading to violence be decided upon. What is the measurement and reference… will we turn the judiciary to a courts of the inquisition that search for thoughts.

The rights of assembly , demonstration, and peaceful strikes are all threatened by the loose definition of terrorism with its elastic and undefined phrases in article 2 of the law “disrupting public order… endangering the interests of society, endangering national security… harming the environment …. Or funds or buildings or public or private property…”   “as well as the fact that any behavior conducted with the objective of achieving any of these aims or preparing for them or instigating for them”

If the definition of the terrorist act still poses a dilemma to the legislators, the draft of this law has confronted this dilemma by widening excessively the scope of crimes to the extent that makes any social action under the threat of being considered a terrorist act. It is worth mentioning that the term “force” is also problematic in specifying the actions associated with its use since this term is not specific to physical force. Force can be manifested in other actions such as organizing demonstrations or sit ins to pressure the forces to take specific actions or retract other.

This expansion in the incrimination and the usage of loose terms that hold many meanings does not solve the problem of definition but makes it more complicated because it opens the door to a selective application of the law and does away with its respect and the abidance by it. If you equate a demonstration or an act of picketing to demand some rights with the blowing up of a police car, you are first and foremost wasting the essence and established bases of justice and inviting people to disrespect the law and wasting the state.

• While the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services is concerned with all rights and freedoms, it notes – especially- the workers’ rights and freedoms. In this regard it expresses its deepest concern regarding the law’s extreme expansion in criminalizing and using loose and unspecific terms in a way that threatens to consider strikes and workers’ movement’s acts of terrorism. For example what is stated in article 2 “a terrorist act means … preventing or obstructing public authorities or judicial bodies or governmental offices or local units or places of worship or hospitals or learning institutions … from performing all or part of their activities or resisting them or obstructing the application of the articles of the constitution or laws or statutes”

The strike of the transportation workers or the railroads or the strikes of doctors or teacher from working in a hospital or a school may enter into this wide criminalizing domain. A worker’s movement demanding the cancellation of a law or the amendment of a statute may be considered a terrorist act. Despite that all of them are rights guaranteed by the constitution but the law makes the constitutional right a terrorist act or crime punishable with the strict punishments specified in it. and so that no one will apprehend us and accuse us of misinterpreting he texts of the law in a way that deviates from what the legislator intended, some government officials have rushed on the eve of its issuance to threaten the employees of the tax authority to apply the terrorism law against them if they conduct their movement or demonstrations. Despite this we do not think that the government can commit such a stark mistake and immediately present to those looking for proof, a proof, that the anti terrorism law does not intend terrorism but is directing its blades against the popular movements and all those who do not respond and agree to the slogan “No voice louder than that of fighting terrorism”. But we find in this threat, what confirms that the government does consider using it for purposes other than fighting terrorism and that expansion in its application was not included in the law in good intention just to ensure the inclusion of all terrorist acts in the scope of its application.

The Center for Trade Union and Worker Services announces its rejection and expresses its concern from the expansion in criminalization and warns that its use or threatening its usage in the face of labor movements or any protest movements of any other social sector. We once more assert that the real confrontation with terrorism is only achieved without the summoning of all of the sectors and strata of society to participate and not threaten them and exclude them; without a development of the mechanisms of democracy and not toppling them; without opening the public domain not closing it; without depriving terrorism of all its nurturing environment whatever they were; without a societal dialogue and negotiation between the social parties since they are the only path to a stable and safe society.

The Center for Trade Union and Worker Services

Tuesday August 25, 2015