After Attack on Embassy, Egypt Vows a Tougher Stance on Protests
Acknowledging a credibility crisis after it allowed a mob to invade the Israeli Embassy here, the military-led transitional government said Saturday night that it would exploit a reviled “emergency law” allowing extra-judicial detentions as part of a new crackdown on disruptive protests.
“Egypt is undergoing a real crisis that is threatening its internal and external security,” Osama Heikal, minister of media, said in statement after an emergency meeting of the cabinet with the military council that seized power this year with the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak. “What happened has damaged Egypt’s image and its international position, and it cannot be condoned.”
The statement marked an abrupt reversal for the military council, which had promised to eliminate the 30-year-old emergency law, a measure allowing indefinite detentions without trial that was considered emblematic of Mr. Mubarak’s authoritarian rule. Its repeal was a signature demand of the revolution.
It is not yet clear how the military government will apply its new declaration — a council of officers has already governed for seven months in suspension of the Constitution, obviating the right to a fair trial, and it has previously warned with little effect of its intolerance of disruptive protests. But the statement appeared to threaten a rollback of Egypt’s new freedoms.
It also underscored the severity of the challenge facing the military-led government as it struggles to restore order to the Egyptian streets without jeopardizing its own tenuous legitimacy. Although it has sometimes surprised protesters with heavy handed force and sent as many as 12,000 civilians to swift military trials, the military council has also sought to avoid confrontation with street protesters or to accommodate their demands in order to preserve its own standing in the eyes of the public.
That strategy proved disastrous Friday night when thousands of protesters attacked the Israeli Embassy…