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07/08/2004:
"Emergency Law"
The Guardian UKEmergency laws are no strangers in the Middle East. They have been in place in Syria and Egypt for decades, and go a long way to explain the suppression of human rights for which the Arab world is so often criticised. Judges are handpicked to secure convictions before special courts and the definition of what constitutes a national emergency can be conveniently elastic. Saad Eddin Ibrahim a leading Egyptian human rights activist was jailed for seven years for violating a military decree banning individuals from receiving foreign funding without government approval. When 23 homosexuals were convicted for "debauchery, contempt of religion and falsely interpreting the Koran," after a raid on a boat moored on the bank of the Nile, the case was treated as a matter of national security for which there was no right of appeal. Iraq is supposed to be different. We are so often told that its occupation and the restoration of sovereignty has a higher moral purpose: that of democratising the Middle East and spreading liberal western values, including respect for the rule of law. So it is surely right that the National Safety Law unveiled in Baghdad yesterday should be scrutinised as a legal as well as a security measure.full article
