Looking at the progress that has been achieved between September 2021 and today without also looking at the decade between 2013 and 2023 and analysing it without reference to the political, economic, social, and international context could lead to many premature conclusions.

If we start from the most recent events, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi has recently used his constitutional powers to grant an amnesty to individuals who played a political or media role in the period after the 25 January Revolution and to release them from prison. Thus far, this presidential initiative has benefited some 1,500 people who had been imprisoned as a result of offences having to do with public demonstrations and the expression of opinions on social media. 

However, names such as those of Ahmed Duma, Omar Al-Sheneti, Mohamed Al-Baqer, Yehya Hussein Abdel-Hadi, Ziad El-Elaimy, and Hossam Moanis, among others, all individuals who have recently benefitted from presidential pardons, are particularly important and need to be considered in more detail.  

The presidential amnesty initiative was launched in April 2022 at the same time as the National Dialogue, whose outcomes will be the object of public discussion and political action over the coming weeks. The National Strategy for Human Rights, the first comprehensive document setting out a road map for the implementation of international and constitutional human rights in Egypt, was also launched in September 2021 just months before the call was launched for the National Dialogue. 

An announcement was also made that the state of emergency in the country would not be extended for the first time since 1952, and the National Council for Human Rights was refounded four years after the issuance of amended Law 197 of 2017.

The question arises whether such initiatives, all taking place between 2021 and 2023, were a departure from what had preceded them and whether they were a departure from policies adhered to over the previous eight years from 2013 to 2021. Answers may differ according to the views of different political currents and their views on the achievements of the 30 June Revolution.

The fact is that in the eight years after 2013 Egypt faced a war of existence. After the 30 June Revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood chose to ally with organisations promoting armed violence and terrorism. It was not enough for the Brotherhood to harness its media platforms to provide political and economic support for terrorist factions in Sinai and the Nile Valley, but it also turned to its old recipe of establishing cells practising terrorism and violence.

The confusion in the wider region, the collapse of entire states such as in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, and the tendency of some regimes to support terrorist organisations all made the period from 2011 to 2020 a fertile period for terrorism, and Egypt was a major target. Various terrorist organisations and their supporters focused their evil efforts on bringing Egypt down, preventing it from reaching stability, undermining its economic capabilities, and minimising its political role at the regional level.

The challenge of terrorism over the past decade was an existential threat to Egypt, as over the course of 90 months some 3,300 Egyptian citizens and soldiers were killed in a struggle that cost the state some LE90 billion, according to statements by President Al-Sisi. An important study by the Ministry of Social Solidarity and the Egyptian Centre for Strategic Studies indicates that the economic cost of terrorist operations in relation to GDP amounted to LE385 billion in the period from 2011 to 2016.

One of the indicators of the nature of this threat came in the targets focused on by the terrorist groups. According to a study by researcher Ahmed Kamel Al-Beheiri published by Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in 2017 entitled “Terrorist Operations: Trajectories and Characteristics Since January 2011,” there were 1,003 terrorist operations from July 2014 to January 2017. The targets of these varied and were no longer limited to members of the armed forces and police, but also expanded to targeting the electricity network, infrastructure, means of transportation, the courts and judges, as well as churches and mosques across Egypt. 

More than 300 worshippers were killed in a terrorist attack on the mosque in the village of Al-Rawda in North Sinai, for example.

Any honest evaluation of the state’s performance over the past ten years will show that it has achieved a decisive victory against terrorism and prevented it from achieving any of its political goals. Perhaps the presidential decision not to renew the state of emergency in October 2021 for the first time in six decades and the announcement of an unprecedented programme for the development and reconstruction of Sinai last February are expressions of the enormous gains that Egypt has been making. We can all agree that these things have only been possible because of the enormous sacrifices made by Egyptian citizens in the armed forces and the police and by the loyal citizens of Sinai.

It would not have been reasonable for the state to confront the threat of terrorism with inadequate tools, and therefore strict legislative procedures were introduced during this period. The government issued several legislative amendments or introduced legislation to provide legal support for those standing in the line of fire and at the forefront of the confrontation, with these targeting both the financing and the incitement dimensions of terrorism and the logistical and media support from which the terrorist groups were benefiting.

At the beginning of the present decade, the situation stabilised in Sinai and the Nile Valley. The capabilities of the terrorist organisations have been undermined, and their supporters have been forced to reconsider their positions. Over the past two years, initiatives related to political freedoms and human rights have also taken place.

A review of the facts allows us to understand the background to President Al-Sisi’s using his constitutional powers to issue amnesties to those who had been sentenced under strict legal procedures to periods in jail. From a national-security perspective, such strict procedures were justified in the past, but today the situation has changed, and they are now no longer as necessary as they once were.   

Today, we need to leave the past decade behind and to focus instead on the future and the significant questions it raises. What should the state do over the next ten years to preserve the gains it has made from the victory over terrorism? What reforms should be introduced in policies and legislative tools to make them suitable for the future? What further positive steps should be taken towards enhancing political and civil liberties, as well as human rights? What policies should be introduced to empower the political parties, elected councils, and civil society organisations and enhance their contributions to policymaking?

The state is a dynamic entity that interacts with and responds to changes in the economic, social, and security context. As a result, we can all expect it to act with suitable dynamism in bringing about more positive changes in the climate of rights and freedoms in Egypt over the next decade and beyond. 

* The writer is a member of the National Council for Human Rights.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 31 August, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly