Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Monday said the government has decided to lift the state of emergency from the country for the first time in years, reported Reuters. The emergency technically expired on Saturday.
A state of emergency was imposed on Egypt in April 2017 after two church bombings killed 47 people in the Egyptian cities of Alexandria and Tanta on Palm Sunday. The emergency has since been extended routinely at three-month intervals, despite an improved security situation.
In a statement posted on Facebook, President Al-Sisi said he was not extending the state of emergency because the country had finally achieved enough security and stability to do without it.
“Egypt has become … an oasis of security and stability in the region,” Egypt’s President Sisi wrote in a Facebook post. “Hence it was decided, for the first time in years, to cancel the extension of the state of emergency in all areas of the country.”
The state of emergency gave authorities powers to make arrests and crack down on enemies of the state. Egyptian security services could detain people indefinitely, interrogate suspects, monitor communications and spy on ordinary citizens. Egypt’s army was empowered to intervene to enforce security if needed.
It was imposed during the extension of a clamp-down on political dissent under President Sisi’s government that has swept up liberal and Islamist critics over the past few years.
Egypt’s security forces have also been struggling to fight an insurgency by militants linked to Islamic State in northern Sinai, although they have recently consolidated their position in the area.
The lifting of the state of emergency comes less than two months after the United States government announced that Egypt would not receive $130 million of the $1.3 billion it receives in annual American aid unless it made certain human rights reforms.
