全球智库信息集成服务系统

Egypt’s new authoritarian regime is rapidly closing the public space—cracking down on autonomous civil society and independent political parties, asphyxiating the practice of pluralist politics, and thwarting citizens’ peaceful and active engagement in public affairs. The government’s primary strategy is to institute wide-scale repression through lawmaking and justify its behavior through conspiratorial and populist narratives. With unprecedented resolve, it has passed new protest and terrorism laws, introduced legal amendments targeting nongovernmental organizations, and extended the military court’s jurisdiction. Essentially, the regime is adapting lawmaking for its own purposes. To fight against the tide, those challenging the system need to fully understand how.

The Strategy

• Egypt’s government is institutionalizing its new authoritarian doctrine as part of the state apparatus, thereby empowering the military and intelligence and security services to control civil society with little oversight.
• Undemocratic laws are being used to rescind established notions of the rule of law and denigrate trust in the impartiality of public institutions.
• Vague, broad language in new and amended laws—such as the Protest Law, NGO Law, Penal Code, Terrorism Law, and Military Court Law—is enabling the regime to arbitrarily prohibit or criminalize activities without definition, make accusations of terrorism without legal restraint, and transfer civilians to military courts.
• With legal backing, scare tactics and police brutality are being used regularly to deprive citizens of their freedoms of expression and association.
• To justify its policies, the regime is propagating conspiracy theories, the defamation of opponents, and hate speech directed at voices of dissent.
• The government is also using religious and nationalistic narratives to elevate its ruler to the level of a moral paragon and savior and to counteract dissatisfaction with Egypt’s deteriorating conditions.
• This approach allows Egypt’s generals to claim that their policies are aligned with national interests and national security.

The Effects

• Debates about public affairs and politics have become permeated with incorrect information, fake news, and outright lies.
• Liberal and leftist parties have been once again either domesticated or marginalized in a formal political arena controlled by the security services.
• Viable opposition movements and civic activism have been severely hindered. Islamist movements, in particular, have been weakened.
• Human rights defenders and nongovernmental organizations have been pushed to the edge of extinction, in constant fear of government sanctions.
• Tens of thousands of people have been detained, imprisoned, tortured, or killed by the security and intelligence services in the name of protecting the country’s stability.

Introduction

After a brief democratic opening, a new authoritarian regime has emerged in Egypt. The military establishment, security services, and intelligence agencies now rule the country and have managed to reintroduce fear as a daily constant in a nation still in dire straits. This stands in stark contrast to the period following the 2011 revolution, which fostered the activity of civil society and political parties and encouraged citizens to freely express their opinions and engage in the political process.

The new authoritarian regime is propagating conspiracy theories and populist narratives as a prime strategy for maintaining its control of society.

Once again, power is held by a military officer who was pushed into the presidential palace after elections that lacked any measure of democratic competition.¹ Images of peacefully protesting masses and citizens waiting in long lines to cast ballots have been replaced by scenes of police units rounding up young Egyptians after attempted peaceful demonstrations, confirmed reports of torture in places of custody, and forced disappearances.²

Using undemocratic legal and judicial tools with a zeal unmatched even during the long authoritarian rule of former president Hosni Mubarak (1981–2011), Egypt’s generals are closing the public space by cracking down on autonomous civil society and independent political parties, asphyxiating the practice of pluralist politics, and pushing citizens away from peaceful and active engagement in public affairs. Scare tactics and police brutality are being used for wide-scale repression. Key opposition groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, a small number of political parties, human rights defenders, and young activists are under immense pressure and struggling against the yoke of the government. The military, as well as the security and intelligence services, are institutionalizing this new authoritarianism as part of the state apparatus. The generals are denying Egyptians the right to a representative and accountable government. Further, according to popular opinion, the generals are ridiculing any serious search for democratic alternatives. Against a background of growing economic and social crises, rising political tensions, and failed policies, the new authoritarian regime is propagating conspiracy theories and populist narratives as a prime strategy for maintaining its control of society.

Egypt’s new government is essentially using lawmaking to legalize its behavior and guarantee impunity for its generals.

This is Egypt’s current reality. And while this is not the country’s first contemporary encounter with undemocratic rule, what is new is the tenacity with which the generals are eliminating human rights and freedoms, threatening Egypt’s fragile social fabric, and monopolizing the state apparatus. They are resorting to repression in direct response to a brief democratic opening and a period of citizen activism that challenged the pillars of authoritarianism. Also notable is the central tool in their efforts—a new series of repressive laws and amendments that have largely gone undiscussed in international discourse. Egypt’s new government is essentially using lawmaking to legalize its behavior and guarantee impunity for its generals. Civil society, opposition parties, and pro-democracy groups will need to continually adapt their strategies to fight against this normalization of repressive action through laws and amendments. To do so, however, first requires an awareness and understanding of both the regime’s tools and the evolving legal landscape.

Deteriorating Conditions

Soon after the 2013 military coup, state-sponsored violence and human rights abuses began to shake Egyptian society. The regime attempted to rationalize them using a claim that they themselves propagated: that the new authoritarianism would save the most populous Middle Eastern country from a civil outbreak, terrorism, and economic decay. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, a former army chief during the 2013 coup, initially portrayed his ascendency to power as the only way to end the threat of terrorism—which was blamed on Egypt’s overthrown president, Mohamed Morsi, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Sisi also made it clear that he had the backing of the military establishment as the ultimate guarantor of restoring stability and improving the living conditions of the majority. It was in this context that wide segments of the population, especially those opposed to the democratic opening, supported the coup and saw Sisi as a savior in uniform.

The generals continue to espouse these promises, even while the situation on the ground deteriorates further. The generals have failed to improve the societal landscape, which continued to worsen when they stalled the democratic opening and asserted their control over state and politics. The threat of terrorism, predominantly in Sinai and to a lesser extent in the Egyptian mainland, has not diminished.³ A growing portion of the population doubts whether the government’s so-called war on terror is being pursued efficiently. The continuation of terrorist attacks since 2013 and the involvement of the military and security forces in indiscriminate killing and other human rights abuses in Sinai are pushing many Egyptians to question official measures.⁴ The implementation of forced evacuation policies targeting some communities in Sinai, along with dramatically deteriorating living conditions, have created a local environment defined by grievances, radicalization, and readiness to violence, which undermines the government’s counterterrorism efforts.⁵ Aside from Sinai, the reported rise of radical sentiments among thousands of young Egyptians detained in prisons or harassed outside of them has stirred up violence,⁶ most significantly in small groups splintering from the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements.⁷

Meanwhile, the country’s economic and social conditions have remained poor. The government has been pursuing a reform program that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved and that is designed to address structural issues such as the huge budget deficit, official overspending, state subsidies, and currency floatation.⁸ However, this long-term program is not expected to improve economic conditions in the near term or lessen the social suffering resulting from high poverty and unemployment rates—27.8 percent and 12.6 percent, respectively, in 2016.⁹ Indeed, the IMF-approved program has hit hard the poor and vulnerable segments of the population, as well as the middle class. Inflation rates are high—reaching 25 percent in December 2016 and January 2017¹⁰—and the local currency has been devalued by almost 50 percent.¹¹ Adding to the economic malaise, the financial support that Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have extended to the government since the 2013 coup has been declining since 2015.¹² Also, due to the unstable security and political situation in the country, Western investments have only increased slightly.¹³

Many of the government’s economic, social, and developmental policies have proven unsuccessful.

Many of the government’s economic, social, and developmental policies have proven unsuccessful. These policies include investing public resources in mega-construction projects with uncertain returns and without any public scrutiny or oversight. Particularly problematic is that some projects such as the second Suez Canal and the New Administrative Capital are managed directly by the economic arm of the military establishment,¹⁴ which is not subjected to effective transparency and accountability measures from other official institutions or from civil society.¹⁵ The government’s policies also stretch to promises of “upcoming achievements beyond imagination” (phrasing frequently used by the current president) that will not be objectively assessed and suffer from a lack of government-provided facts and information.¹⁶ Only a few programs implemented to help the poor (a third of the population)—most notably the cash payment program named Solidarity and Dignity (Takaful wa Karama), which the Ministry of Social Solidarity oversees—have been rated successful by independent sources.¹⁷

The State’s Conspiracy Theories, Defamation Campaigns, and Populist Narratives

The government recognizes that it cannot rely only on the promise of restoring security and improving the living conditions of the majority to justify its closing of the democratic opening and its heavy-handed ruling techniques. Therefore, it is also using a web of alternative narratives to justify its approach and is spreading these messages using security-controlled public and private media institutions. Conspiracy theories, defamation campaigns, and hate speech against voices of dissent have assumed central positions in this web. In the official discourse, the government’s failures are blamed on opposition movements and pro-democracy groups to divert attention from the negative consequences of repression and failed policies employed by the generals.¹⁸

Nationalistic populism is used to justify the generals’ monopoly on power by allowing the ruling general to claim to be aligning with national interests and national security.

Conspiracy theories accusing autonomous civil society of serving foreign governments’ agendas and defamation campaigns depicting young activists and voices of dissent as forces of chaos discourage the development of viable opposition movements and limit the popular appeal of dissenting voices.¹⁹ In a public space in which free speech about the failures and transgressions of the government is not allowed, these narratives amount to a systematic effort to brainwash the population and permeate debates about public affairs with incorrect information, fake news, and outright lies.²⁰

Increasingly, Egypt’s generals are also depending on notions of religious and nationalistic populism to tighten their grip on many aspects of societal life—under the pretense that they are ruling on behalf of ordinary citizens and attending to their needs.21 Religious populism elevates the ruler to the level of a moral paragon who has the right to speak in the name of religion—not just in the public and political spheres but also in terms of citizens’ private lives and ethics. The new authoritarian government is using official Islamic and Christian institutions to impose its own interpretations of religion on Egyptian society. These interpretations appear in four interrelated ways. First, the government frames obedience to the ruling general and the approval of its policies as a religious duty.²² Second, the generals claim that the government-promoted understanding of religion is moderate, so anything that goes against it can be labeled extremist. This extends from the religious-based platforms of nonviolent opposition movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, to violent jihadist groups.²³ Third, they depict the ruling general as a protector of dignified morals and values, so divergent moral conceptions can be denounced as inappropriate for Egypt—a denunciation frequently addressed to human rights activists and pro-democracy civil society organizations.²⁴ And fourth, the generals use religious symbols and statements in the public space to rationalize repression and human rights abuses and to demand popular support for the messiah in uniform.²⁵

Nationalistic populism is used to justify the generals’ monopoly on power by allowing the ruling general to claim to be aligning with national interests and national security.²⁶ The savior role of the generals, as foster parents to an infant nation,²⁷ is juxtaposed with a widespread stigmatization of supporters of pluralism, civilian institutions, and civilian politicians that deems them incapable of providing security and stability.²⁸ The generals characterize civilians as not having the capacity to safeguard the nation and provide for the real welfare of the country or as insular groups that seek only to further their own interests. As politics and politicians are derided, the new authoritarian regime justifies filling the void in the executive and legislative branches of government with military, security, and intelligence officers by portraying them as true nationalists and members of the only institutions capable of promoting stability and prosperity.²⁹ The end objective is to make Egyptians believe there are no credible alternatives to the generals, despite their violence and failed policies.³⁰

The government has been drawing on a reliable set of notions commonly employed throughout the long history of Egyptian authoritarianism and easy to adapt to the current authoritarian moment. These notions are best captured by phrases such as “the president is working, but some institutions and agencies limit the success of his policies”; “if it were not for the continuous intervention and guidance of the president, the economic and financial situation of the country would be disastrous”; and “the president is the only one aware of the real magnitude of the responsibility placed on his shoulders, and that is why he does not sleep except for a few hours daily.”³¹ The phrases are repeated often in security-controlled public and private media outlets, along with other general and romantic statements about the savior president that are meant to glorify his role and build a personality cult around him. A second set of notions is tailored to promote the military establishment and, to a lesser extent, the security and intelligence services as spearheading the efforts to save Egypt, to fight corruption in civilian institutions and guide their policies toward greater efficiency, and to provide for citizens’ basic needs (from milk formula for children to medication).³²

Civilian officials and politicians have been frequently portrayed as giving in to the lure of private interests and rewards.

These notions have been coupled with the frequent employment of statements that ridicule civilian politics, describing it as sophistry. Civilian officials and politicians have been frequently portrayed as giving in to the lure of private interests and rewards. Other times, they have been labeled incapable of familiarizing themselves with the requirements of “national salvation.” They have been accused of making wrong decisions that fall on the president to correct, including drafting a constitution that “is full of good intentions, but is not attentive enough to the requirements of defending the state and national security.”³³

Nationalistic populism, further, has enabled the creation of a governing framework that is in clear contradiction with the principles of the rule of law and good governance. The military establishment and the security and intelligence services—which benefit from such populism—obtain constitutional, legal, and political immunity from all forms of accountability.³⁴ The 2014 constitution enshrines a special status for the military establishment. Its budget cannot be discussed in a transparent manner, mechanisms for oversight of the armed forces are eliminated, and civilians face military courts whenever the generals decide such action is appropriate.³⁵ Capitalizing on this special status, the military establishment has increased its economic and social role.³⁶ The number of military and security generals appointed to key executive positions or promoted to positions in Parliament has also been on the rise.³⁷ Indeed, the promotion of retired military and police officers in the parliamentary elections of 2015 was a key step in further militarizing the formal political arena. In Parliament, retired officers have been positioned at the heads of blocs and subcommittees,³⁸ and their dominance—among other factors—has led to the adoption of repressive laws and antidemocratic measures.³⁹ This setup undermines the power of the legislative and judicial branches of government and therefore limits the checks and balances in the political system and neutralizes governmental monitoring agencies such as the Central Auditing Organization.⁴⁰

The government has introduced under this nationalistic populist guise various legal changes that contradict basic notions of justice and equality.

In the public space, nationalistic populism silences voices of dissent and pro-democracy groups. The new authoritarian government has sought to discredit these voices and groups to break any conceptual link among democracy, human rights, and the interests of ordinary people. The same techniques are used to discredit student activists critical of wide-scale human rights abuses and industrial workers demanding legitimate wage increases. They too are accused of corruption, treason, and conspiracy.⁴¹ As security-controlled media outlets tell it, local and international reports documenting human rights abuses and narrating the personal tragedies of labor activists are outright lies. For these outlets, statements issued by Egyptian and Western nongovernmental organizations detailing the government’s repressive policies are all manifestations of grand conspiracies against the country. Nationalistic populism often allows regimes to dismiss universal standards of democracy and the rule of law as Western practices pushed by “enemies of the nation” that do not apply to Egypt and are not binding to the government.⁴² Police brutality and violations of basic rights and freedoms are mere propaganda claims disseminated by “traitors” of the military establishment that has saved Egypt from slipping into chaos and destruction.⁴³ Forced disappearances, torture, extrajudicial killings, and various rights abuses are all committed under the banner of protecting the nation and defending the interests of ordinary Egyptians.⁴⁴

The readiness of the media to use denial tactics, hate speech, and negative collective labels to justify abuses has made it easier for the military establishment and security services to systematically violate citizens’ rights and freedoms.⁴⁵ It has led within the Egyptian state apparatus to the predominance of the military establishment and security and intelligence services—institutions that are in a position to unleash excessive force on citizens and society. This has greatly diminished any potential for civilian politics or for balancing civil-military relations in post-2013 Egypt.⁴⁶ Furthermore, the government has introduced under this nationalistic populist guise various legal changes that contradict basic notions of justice and equality. The military and security forces, claiming to wage a just war on terror, have engaged in unlawful and unchecked surveillance while threatening citizens’ rights and freedoms.⁴⁷

In sum, instead of implementing sound economic and social policies or developing counterterrorism measures that avoid human rights abuses, the new authoritarian government has exploited nationalistic populism to ignore the realities of repression and deny the free flow of information. The generals have convinced large segments of the population that others are to blame for the growing crises in Egypt and have suggested that a citizen’s duty is to support the government and obey the generals. But saving the country will be nearly impossible as long as human rights abuses, the excessive economic role of the military establishment, and the lukewarm fight against corruption continue.⁴⁸

This is an Orwellian paradox. In the name of the people, Egypt’s generals have effectively engaged in behavior directed primarily against the people.

Lawmaking in Service of New Authoritarianism

To carry out these efforts, the regime is using legal measures to pull citizens away from the public space, close it off, and prosecute opponents (see table 1). Little local and global attention has been paid to the details surrounding the introduction of new laws and various amendments—and even less to the implications they have for citizens’ rights and freedoms, the rule of law, notions of justice, and popular trust in the impartiality of public institutions. This oversight may be due to the technical nature of these laws and legal amendments and the rapid rate at which they are being introduced. A thorough analysis of how the ruling generals are subjugating Egypt’s society is of paramount importance to understanding the mechanics of the country’s new authoritarianism.

The Protest Law

On November 24, 2013, Egypt’s interim president, Adly Mansour, used his temporary legislative prerogatives to issue a law titled Organizing the Right to Public Meetings, Processions, and Peaceful Demonstrations.⁴⁹ This measure, known locally as the Protest Law, should be scrutinized not only because it usurps the freedom of many Egyptian youth, students, workers, Muslim Brotherhood members, and others, but also because it has created a citizen diaspora—a chased community outside of the public space, pursued by a government that does not shy away from sponsoring violence and legalizing repression.⁵⁰

The Protest Law recognizes citizens’ right to “organize a meeting, or conduct a procession or protest.”⁵¹ It requires notification to be given at least three days and no more than fifteen days in advance of such actions. Yet, the law as originally drafted gives the security services absolute power to cancel or postpone a demonstration, change its location, and modify its path based on “serious information or evidence” regarding threats against security and peace. In its tenth article, the law effectively eliminates citizens’ rights of peaceful assembly and demonstration. It also does not include any guarantees that demonstrators will not be surveilled or subjected to threats.

This setup makes the security services the proverbial judge, jury, and executioner. It essentially allows police forces to conduct themselves—potentially committing abuses—without any oversight, control, or framework for objective evaluation of their actions. The only check on the security services in the law is weak. Article Ten, as originally drafted, allows citizens to air their grievances concerning the prevention of demonstrations or the delay of decisions in front of a judge. This just means, however, that citizens can file a complaint, with no indication of the potential outcomes.

In another stipulation, the law essentially gives the security services and other executive-affiliated bodies the capacity to bar civilians from protesting in front of public offices. It endows the security services with the authority to delineate “secure zones” surrounding public institutions and facilities, in which demonstrations and rallies are prohibited. The security services have expanded their use of the term secure zone to prevent any protest against legislative, executive, and judicial institutions that are responsible for public actions—institutions that across the world draw the attention of citizens with grievances and of constituencies harmed by public policies. The same stipulation has also been employed to disperse marches on police stations, governors’ offices, and municipalities that have quotidian interactions with the public and often marginalize society’s weakest groups.

The most serious of these measures is a draconian ban imposed in Article Seven on various types of protests. It prohibits participation in meetings, rallies, marches, and demonstrations that the government classifies as disturbing societal peace and as potentially resulting in the damage of public and private property, road blockages, and the prevention of other citizens from exercising their rights. Article Seven also outlaws peaceful rallies, strikes, and sit-ins that could damage state-owned means of production or individual businesses. This ban negates the constitutionally enshrined and internationally sanctioned right to peacefully protest in streets and squares and to conduct strikes and sit-ins at work sites.

The [protest] law essentially gives the security services and other executiveaffiliated bodies the capacity to bar civilians from protesting in front of public offices.

Articles eleven through thirteen also provide tools for the security services to virtually abolish citizens’ rights to protest. They grant police forces the authority to use batons as well as rubber and nonrubber bullets to disperse meetings, rallies, marches, and demonstrations that they deem unpeaceful. The law does not include an adequate definition of what constitutes a “departure from the peaceful nature.” It authorizes “dispersion by force,” which has led to a massive increase in the use of violent dispersal tactics.⁵² Moreover, the law outlines a range of financial sanctions, as well as imprisonment, for those who violate its rules.

There has been some movement against this law since it was passed. As a result of human rights defenders, young activists, and the few remaining opposition parties continually demanding that it be annulled, the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) struck down Article Ten on December 3, 2016.⁵³ The court ruled that granting the security services the power to regulate and prevent demonstrations was unconstitutional. The demonstrators’ constitutional rights and the principle of separation of powers oblige that the security services’ demands regarding restricting demonstrations and other protest activities are referred to a court to adjudicate the matter.

This [article seven] ban negates the constitutionally enshrined and internationally sanctioned right to peacefully protest in streets and squares and to conduct strikes and sit-ins at work sites.

Notably, the SCC stated that the requirement for citizens to notify the security services of their intentions to demonstrate is not designed to empower the government to restrict a constitutional right. The ruling says that only a competent court in accordance with due process could apply such a restriction. This could have implications in areas other than demonstrations, particularly nongovernmental organization (NGO) registration. It could force the government to go to court to prevent an organization from gaining official status rather than the current practice of rejecting registration applications and forcing applicants to engage in lengthy litigation to reverse the decisions.

If the security services are determined to restrict demonstrations, however, the surviving articles of the Protest Law give them wide-ranging legal powers to do so. For instance, they can still ask a court to ban peaceful demonstrations in squares, roads, and work sites and close to state buildings and public offices. And the provisions regarding the use of force still stand.⁵⁴

The NGO Law

Since 2013, the Egyptian government has been characterizing civil society actors, especially human rights organizations and legal assistance organizations, as seditious elements. The aim is to curb p