Egyptian National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) Secretary-General Mahmoud Karem said the council’s position vis-a-vis the longstanding emergency law had not changed. “The state of emergency must be abolished,” Karem said at a meeting with a delegation of US congressional aides on Sunday.
Karem briefed the delegation on the council’s latest projects, including the formation of an anti-torture unit and a citizens’ complaints department.
“We also plan to reactivate the human rights culture dissemination program that was funded by USAID,” he told the delegation.
MP Ibtessam Habib, for her part, urged members of the delegation to differentiate between the previous emergency law and its current truncated form, in which it has been restricted to crimes of drug trafficking and terrorism. “It’s a step towards its total abolition once an anti-terrorism act is passed,” she said.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
