On Tuesday President Sisi approved a new anti-terrorism law for Egypt which seems to be more about labelling political foes as terrorists than actually combating terrorism.

The new law is so broad that it allows people to be convicted of "terrorism" even if they don't in violence. Al-Ahram explains:

"The law defines terrorist entities as groups or organisations that 'through any means inside or outside the country, seek to call for the disabling of laws, or prevent state institutions or public authorities from functioning, or seek to attack the personal liberty of citizens, or other freedoms and rights granted [to citizens] by the law and constitution, or to harm national unity or social peace'."

This kind of sweeping definition makes a mockery of efforts to combat real terrorism and, in Sisi's case, it flies in the face of very clear advice given by the UN to Egypt five years ago.

In 2009, Martin Scheinin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Protection of Human Rights while Countering Terrorism, paid an official visit to Egypt. At the time, the Mubarak regime was considering plans for ending its exceptional powers under the semi-permanent "state of emergency" and replacing them with an anti-terrorism law. 

In his report, Scheinin was highly critical of the Mubarak regime's approach which was not very different from that of Sisi today. 

On the question of defining terrorism, Scheinin wrote:

"Domestic counterterrorism provisions should, in the absence of a comprehensive international definition of the crime of terrorism, adhere to the three-step cumulative characterization according to which an act, in order to be classified as terrorist, must have been:

"(a) Committed against members of the general population, or segments of it, with the intention of causing death or serious bodily injury, or the taking of hostages;

"(b) Committed for the purpose of provoking a state of terror, intimidating a population, or compelling a government or international organisation to do or abstain from doing any act;

"(c) Correspond to all elements of a serious crime as defined by the law."

Scheinin added: "Any terrorist act proscribed by the law must comprise or have sufficient relation to the intentional element of causing deadly or otherwise serious bodily harm. 

In addition, he said, "any provision criminalising terrorism must ... be formulated with sufficient precision so as to allow the individual to regulate his conduct and anticipate the elements that make an activity a terrorist crime".

This is the main problem with Sisi's new law: it's so vague that Egyptians have no idea whether they are complying with it or not. 

• For further discussion, see The Terrorist Entities Law: Egypt’s Latest, by Mai El-Sadany

    
Posted by Brian Whitaker
Friday, 27 February 2015