Mubarak era
Encyclopedia
Mubarak era refers to the 29 year long presidency of Hosni Mubarak
, the period of Egypt
ian history
spanning from October 1981 when President Anwar Sadat
, Mubarak's predecessor, was assassinated
, though February 2011, when Mubarak was overthrown by a revolution
.
, Vice President since 1975 and air force commander during the October 1973 war, was elected President unopposed in a referendum
later that month. He was subsequently confirmed by popular referendum for three more six-year terms, most recently in September 2005. The referendums allowed no opposition candidate(s) (with the exception of 2005) as the Egyptian People's Assembly (parliament), which was dominated by ruling party, did not allow any. In 2005 he received 88.6% of the vote against two candidates.
Egypt saw little progress on political reform. The November 2000 People's Assembly elections
saw 34 members of the opposition win seats in the 454-seat assembly, facing a clear majority of 388 ultimately affiliated with the ruling National Democratic Party
(NDP). A constitutional amendment in May 2005 changed the presidential election to a multi-candidate popular vote rather than a popular validation of a candidate nominated by the People’s Assembly and on 7 September Mubarak was elected
for another six-year term with 87 percent of the popular vote, followed by a distant but strong showing by Ayman Nour
, leader of the opposition Ghad Party and a well-known rights activist.
Shortly after mounting an unprecedented presidential campaign, Nour was jailed on forgery charges critics called phony; he was released on 18 February 2009. Brotherhood members were allowed to run for parliament in 2005 as independents, garnering 88 seats, or 20 percent of the People’s Assembly.
The opposition parties have been weak and divided and compared to the NDP. The Muslim Brotherhood
, founded in Egypt in 1928, was kept an illegal organization and not recognized as a political party (current Egyptian law prohibits the formation of political parties based on religion). Members are known publicly and openly speak their views. Members of the Brotherhood have been elected to the People's Assembly and local councils as independents. The Egyptian political opposition also includes groups and popular movements such as Kefaya and the April 6 Youth Movement
, although they are somewhat less organized than officially registered political parties. Bloggers, or cyberactivists as Courtney C. Radsch terms them, have also played an important political opposition role, writing, organizing, and mobilizing public opposition.
President Mubarak had tight, autocratic control over Egypt.
A dramatic drop in support for Mubarak and his domestic economic reform program increased with surfacing news about his son Alaa
being extremely corrupt and favored in government tenders and privatization. As Alaa started getting out of the picture by 2000, Mubarak’s second son Gamal
started rising in the National Democratic Party and succeeded in getting a newer generation of neo-liberals into the party and eventually the government. Gamal Mubarak branched out with a few colleagues to set up Medinvest Associates Ltd., which manages a private equity fund, and to do some corporate finance consultancy work.
republic under Emergency Law
(Law No. 162 of 1958)
and has been since 1967, except for an 18-month break in 1980s (which ended with the assassination of Anwar Sadat
). Under the law, police powers are extended, constitutional rights
suspended and censorship is legalized.
The law sharply circumscribes any non-governmental political activity: street demonstrations
, non-approved political organizations, and unregistered financial donations are formally banned. Some 17,000 people are detained under the law, and estimates of political prisoner
s run as high as 30,000. Under that "state of emergency", the government has the right to imprison individuals for any period of time, and for virtually no reason, thus keeping them in prisons without trials for any period. The government claimed that opposition groups like the Muslim Brotherhood
could come into power in Egypt if the current government did not forgo parliamentary elections, confiscate the group's main financiers' possessions, and detain group figureheads, actions which are virtually impossible without emergency law and judicial-system independence prevention.
to Egypt's constitution (Article 76) calling for this was voted on and approved. The amendment's requirements for presidential candidates to be on the ballot were very strict -- the support of 250 elected members of councils and parliament (all dominated by members of the ruling National Democratic Party
) including 65 of the 444 members of the People's Assembly of Egypt
; being the candidate of a party registered with the government for at least five years -- and no opposition party up to that time would have qualified to run a candidate. Opposition parties called on voters to boycott the referendum as meaningless, but it passed with over 80% approval.
. Egypt also has played a moderating role in such international forums as the UN and the Nonaligned Movement.
Under Mubarak, Egypt was a staunch ally of the United States, whose aid to Egypt has averaged $2 billion a year since the 1979 signing of the Camp David Peace Accords. Egypt was a member of the allied coalition in the 1991 Gulf War
, and Egyptian infantry were some of the first to land in Saudi Arabia
to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait
. Egypt's involvement in the coalition was deemed by the US government as crucial in garnering wider Arab support for the liberation of Kuwait.
Although unpopular among Egyptians, the participation of Egyptian forces brought financial benefits for the Egyptian government. Reports that sums as large as $500,000 per soldier were paid or debt forgiven were published in the news media. According to The Economist
:
Mubarak did not, however, support the 2003 Iraq War by the US, arguing that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
should have been resolved first.
mutinied taking to the streets, rioting, burning and looting in demand for better pay. The uprising was the greatest challenge of the Mubarak presidency up to that point and only the second time in modern Egyptian history the Army was dispatched to Egyptian streets to restore order.
In 1992 14,000 soldiers occupied the Cairo shantytown suburb of Imbaba
(est. population 1,000,000) for six-weeks arresting and removing some 5000 people, after al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya
followers of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman
attempted to take control there. In the following years al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya
waged war against the state and against foreigners. In one year (1993) 1106 persons were killed or wounded. More police (120) than terrorists (111) were killed that year and "several senior police officials and their bodyguards were shot dead in daylight ambushes." The terror climaxed in 1997 when at least 71 people, mostly Swiss tourists, were killed by al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya gunmen at the Hatshepsut Temple
outside Luxor
. For several years Egypt was free of Islamist attacks until July 2005 when 86 people were killed
and over 150 were wounded in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh
.
In 2007-8 Egypt witnessed more than 150 demonstrations and strikes. "Some were violent and required heavy deployment of the security forces."
estimated between 5,000 and 10,000 Egyptians were held without charge. Police and security forces regularly used torture and brutality. According to the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
, 701 cases of torture at Egyptian police stations were documented from 1985 to 2011, and 204 victims died of torture and mistreatment. The group contends that crimes of torture `occur in Egyptian streets in broad daylight, at police checkpoints, and in people's homes in flagrant violation of the people's dignity and freedom.`
Freedom of Expression, association
and assembly
was limited under Mubarak. The Press Law, Publications Law, and the penal code regulated the press, and called for punishment by fines or imprisonment for those who criticized the president. Freedom house upgraded Egypt's Press Freedom status in 2008 from "Not Free" to "Partly Free" in recognition not of a liberalization of government policy, but because
placed Egypt 143rd out of 167 nations on press freedoms, and its 2006 report cited continued harassment and, in three cases, imprisonment, of journalists. The two sources agree that promised reforms on the subject have been disappointingly slow or uneven in implementation.
From 1991, Mubarak undertook an ambitious domestic economic reform program to reduce the size of the public sector and expand the role of the private sector.
During the 1990s, a series of International Monetary Fund arrangements, coupled with massive external debt relief resulting from Egypt's participation in the Gulf War coalition, helped Egypt improve its macroeconomic performance.
In the last two decades of Mubarak's reign, inflation was lowered from double-digit to a single digit.
Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) increased fourfold between 1981 and 2006, from US$ 1355 in 1981, to US$ 2525 in 1991, to US$ 3686 in 2001 and to an estimated US$ 4535 in 2006.
However monetary restructuring, especially the flotation of the Egyptian pound, the liberalization
of the country's money markets, a reform of the tax system and strategic reductions in governmental social spending, resulted in "staggering hardships for the majority of the people" according to at least one observer. With housing scarcer and more expensive "marriage became harder for young people; it became common to have a family of six or seven living together in a single room."
As of 1989, early in the Mubarak era, Egypt continued to have a skewed distribution of wealth; about 2,000 families had annual incomes in excess of 35,000 Egyptian pounds (£E), while more than 4 million people earned less than £E200.
Social conditions in Egypt improved but modernization "did not succeed in reaching a critical mass of its citizens," furthermore "some of the recent gains were reversed due to the 2008 food price crisis and fuel price shock and to the global crisis-related slowdown in economic activity." According to the World Bank:
.
In 2010, Transparency International
's Corruption Perceptions Index
report assessed Egypt with a CPI score of 3.1 out of 10.0, based on perceptions of the degree of corruption from business people and country analysts, (10 being no corruption and 0 being totally corrupt). Egypt ranked 98th out of the 178 countries included in the report.
Under a law pass shortly before the Mubarak presidency, the structure of pre-university public education in Egypt made a nine-year education compulsory. Despite this most parents removed their children from school before they graduated from ninth grade. The basic cycle included six years of primary school and after passing special examinations, three years of intermediate school. Another special examinations gained admittance to the non-compulsory secondary cycle (grades ten through twelve). Secondary students chose between a general (college preparatory) curriculum of humanities, mathematics, or the sciences: and a technical curriculum of agriculture, communications, or industry. Students could advance between grades only after they received satisfactory scores on standardized tests.
As in many poor countries the enrollment rate for girls lagged boys. In 1985-86, early in the Mubark presidency, only 45% of all primary students were girls. An estimated 75% of girls between the ages of six and twelve were enrolled in primary school but 94% of boys. In Upper Egypt less than 30% of all students were girls. Girls also dropped out of primary school more frequently than boys. Girls accounted for about 41 percent of total intermediate school enrollment and 39 percent of secondary school enrollment. Among all girls aged twelve to eighteen in 1985-86, only 46 percent were enrolled in school.
when, on 11 February, Vice President Omar Suleiman
announced that Mubarak had resigned as president and transferred authority to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
. On 13 April, a prosecutor ordered Mubarak and both his sons to be detained for 15 days of questioning about allegations of corruption and abuse of power. He was then ordered to stand trial on charges of premeditated murder
of peaceful protestors during the revolution.
Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011....
, the period of Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian history
History of the Republic of Egypt
History of the Republic of Egypt refers to the history of Egypt following the 1952 Egyptian revolution up to the present day. The revolution replacing the Turco-Circassian monarchy was the first time in over 2000 years Egypt was ruled by an Egyptian...
spanning from October 1981 when President Anwar Sadat
Anwar Sadat
Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981...
, Mubarak's predecessor, was assassinated
Assassination of Anwar Sadat
The Assassination of Anwar El Sadat occurred on 6 October 1981. Anwar El Sadat, the President of Egypt, was assassinated during the annual victory parade held in Cairo to celebrate Egypt's crossing of the Suez Canal. A fatwā approving the assassination had been obtained from Omar Abdel-Rahman, a...
, though February 2011, when Mubarak was overthrown by a revolution
2011 Egyptian revolution
The 2011 Egyptian revolution took place following a popular uprising that began on Tuesday, 25 January 2011 and is still continuing as of November 2011. The uprising was mainly a campaign of non-violent civil resistance, which featured a series of demonstrations, marches, acts of civil...
.
Politics
On 6 October 1981, President Sadat was assassinated by Islamic extremists. Hosni MubarakHosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011....
, Vice President since 1975 and air force commander during the October 1973 war, was elected President unopposed in a referendum
Referendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
later that month. He was subsequently confirmed by popular referendum for three more six-year terms, most recently in September 2005. The referendums allowed no opposition candidate(s) (with the exception of 2005) as the Egyptian People's Assembly (parliament), which was dominated by ruling party, did not allow any. In 2005 he received 88.6% of the vote against two candidates.
Egypt saw little progress on political reform. The November 2000 People's Assembly elections
Egyptian parliamentary election, 2000
Parliamentary elections were held in Egypt in three stages between 18 October and 8 November 2000. The election was broken into stages after a July ruling by the Supreme Constitutional Court that that judges must monitor all polling stations...
saw 34 members of the opposition win seats in the 454-seat assembly, facing a clear majority of 388 ultimately affiliated with the ruling National Democratic Party
National Democratic Party (Egypt)
The National Democratic Party , often simply called Al-Ḥizb al-Waṭaniy – the "National Party", was an Egyptian political party. It was founded by President Anwar El Sadat in 1978....
(NDP). A constitutional amendment in May 2005 changed the presidential election to a multi-candidate popular vote rather than a popular validation of a candidate nominated by the People’s Assembly and on 7 September Mubarak was elected
Egyptian presidential election, 2005
The Egyptian presidential election of 2005, held on September 7, 2005, was the first allegedly contested presidential election in Egypt's history. Hosni Mubarak, the former President of Egypt, won a fifth consecutive six-year term in office, with official results showing he won 88.6% of the vote...
for another six-year term with 87 percent of the popular vote, followed by a distant but strong showing by Ayman Nour
Ayman Nour
Ayman Abd El Aziz Nour is an Egyptian politician, a former member of the Egyptian Parliament and chairman of the El Ghad party.He was imprisoned in January 2005 by the government of President Hosni Mubarak. Nour was released on health grounds on February 18, 2009...
, leader of the opposition Ghad Party and a well-known rights activist.
Shortly after mounting an unprecedented presidential campaign, Nour was jailed on forgery charges critics called phony; he was released on 18 February 2009. Brotherhood members were allowed to run for parliament in 2005 as independents, garnering 88 seats, or 20 percent of the People’s Assembly.
The opposition parties have been weak and divided and compared to the NDP. The Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...
, founded in Egypt in 1928, was kept an illegal organization and not recognized as a political party (current Egyptian law prohibits the formation of political parties based on religion). Members are known publicly and openly speak their views. Members of the Brotherhood have been elected to the People's Assembly and local councils as independents. The Egyptian political opposition also includes groups and popular movements such as Kefaya and the April 6 Youth Movement
April 6 Youth Movement
The April 6 Youth Movement is an Egyptian Facebook group started in Spring 2008 to support the workers in El-Mahalla El-Kubra, an industrial town, who were planning to strike on April 6....
, although they are somewhat less organized than officially registered political parties. Bloggers, or cyberactivists as Courtney C. Radsch terms them, have also played an important political opposition role, writing, organizing, and mobilizing public opposition.
President Mubarak had tight, autocratic control over Egypt.
A dramatic drop in support for Mubarak and his domestic economic reform program increased with surfacing news about his son Alaa
Alaa Mubarak
Alaa Mubarak , or Alā'-ud-dīn Muhammad Husni Sayyid Mubarak is an Egyptian businessman and the elder of two sons of ousted president Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, who served from 1981-2011, and his wife Suzanne Mubarak....
being extremely corrupt and favored in government tenders and privatization. As Alaa started getting out of the picture by 2000, Mubarak’s second son Gamal
Gamal Mubarak
Gamal Al Din Mohammed Hosni Sayed Mubarak , , is the younger of the two sons of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and former First Lady Suzanne Mubarak...
started rising in the National Democratic Party and succeeded in getting a newer generation of neo-liberals into the party and eventually the government. Gamal Mubarak branched out with a few colleagues to set up Medinvest Associates Ltd., which manages a private equity fund, and to do some corporate finance consultancy work.
Emergency law rule
Egypt is a semi-presidentialSemi-presidential system
The semi-presidential system is a system of government in which a president and a prime minister are both active participants in the day-to-day administration of the state...
republic under Emergency Law
Emergency law in Egypt
Emergency law in Egypt was first enacted in 1958, as Law No. 162 of 1958 and has remained in effect since 1967, except for an 18-month break in 1980...
(Law No. 162 of 1958)
and has been since 1967, except for an 18-month break in 1980s (which ended with the assassination of Anwar Sadat
Anwar Sadat
Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981...
). Under the law, police powers are extended, constitutional rights
Constitution of Egypt
The Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt was the fundamental law of Egypt. It was adopted on September 11, 1971 through a public referendum. It was later amended in 1980, 2005 and 2007. It was proclaimed to update the democratic representative system in assertion of the rule of law,...
suspended and censorship is legalized.
The law sharply circumscribes any non-governmental political activity: street demonstrations
Demonstration (people)
A demonstration or street protest is action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause; it normally consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, to hear speakers.Actions such as...
, non-approved political organizations, and unregistered financial donations are formally banned. Some 17,000 people are detained under the law, and estimates of political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
s run as high as 30,000. Under that "state of emergency", the government has the right to imprison individuals for any period of time, and for virtually no reason, thus keeping them in prisons without trials for any period. The government claimed that opposition groups like the Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...
could come into power in Egypt if the current government did not forgo parliamentary elections, confiscate the group's main financiers' possessions, and detain group figureheads, actions which are virtually impossible without emergency law and judicial-system independence prevention.
2005 constitutional change
Egypt had never had direct elections for the presidency, only referendums approving the ruling party president. By 2005 international and domestic pressure grew for reforms to permit a multi-candidate election and on 25 May 2005 a referendumEgyptian constitutional referendum, 2005
The 2005 Egyptian constitutional referendum took place in Egypt on 25 May 2005. The referendum was on a proposed change to the constitution of Egypt which would establish direct elections for the presidency...
to Egypt's constitution (Article 76) calling for this was voted on and approved. The amendment's requirements for presidential candidates to be on the ballot were very strict -- the support of 250 elected members of councils and parliament (all dominated by members of the ruling National Democratic Party
National Democratic Party (Egypt)
The National Democratic Party , often simply called Al-Ḥizb al-Waṭaniy – the "National Party", was an Egyptian political party. It was founded by President Anwar El Sadat in 1978....
) including 65 of the 444 members of the People's Assembly of Egypt
People's Assembly of Egypt
The People's Assembly is the lower house of Egypt's bicameral parliament. In spite of its lower status, however, it plays a more important role in drafting legislation and day-to-day legislative duties than the Shura Council, the upper house....
; being the candidate of a party registered with the government for at least five years -- and no opposition party up to that time would have qualified to run a candidate. Opposition parties called on voters to boycott the referendum as meaningless, but it passed with over 80% approval.
Foreign policy
Mubarak maintained Egypt's commitment to the Camp David peace process, while at the same time re-establishing Egypt's position as an Arab leader. In January 1984, Egypt was readmitted to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation; in November 1987, an Arab summit resolution allowed the Arab countries to resume diplomatic relations with Egypt; and in 1989 Egypt was readmitted to the Arab LeagueArab League
The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...
. Egypt also has played a moderating role in such international forums as the UN and the Nonaligned Movement.
Under Mubarak, Egypt was a staunch ally of the United States, whose aid to Egypt has averaged $2 billion a year since the 1979 signing of the Camp David Peace Accords. Egypt was a member of the allied coalition in the 1991 Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
, and Egyptian infantry were some of the first to land in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...
. Egypt's involvement in the coalition was deemed by the US government as crucial in garnering wider Arab support for the liberation of Kuwait.
Although unpopular among Egyptians, the participation of Egyptian forces brought financial benefits for the Egyptian government. Reports that sums as large as $500,000 per soldier were paid or debt forgiven were published in the news media. According to The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
:
"The programme worked like a charm: a textbook case, says the IMFInternational Monetary FundThe International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...
. In fact, luck was on Hosni Mubarak's side; when the US was hunting for a military alliance to force Iraq out of Kuwait, Egypt's president joined without hesitation. After the war, his reward was that America, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, and Europe forgave Egypt around $14 billion of debt."
Mubarak did not, however, support the 2003 Iraq War by the US, arguing that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
should have been resolved first.
Unrest and terror
Unrest was not unknown during Mubarak's reign. In February 1986 the Central Security ForcesCentral Security Forces
The 350,000 strong Central Security Forces CSF organization is an Egyptian Paramilitary force which is responsible for assisting the Egyptian National Police for the security of governmental fixed sites, foreign embassies & missions, riots & crowds control, publicly crowded events, high risk...
mutinied taking to the streets, rioting, burning and looting in demand for better pay. The uprising was the greatest challenge of the Mubarak presidency up to that point and only the second time in modern Egyptian history the Army was dispatched to Egyptian streets to restore order.
In 1992 14,000 soldiers occupied the Cairo shantytown suburb of Imbaba
Imbaba
Imbaba is a neighbourhood in northern Cairo, Egypt, located west of the Nile and northwest of and near Gezira Island and downtown Cairo, within the Giza Governorate...
(est. population 1,000,000) for six-weeks arresting and removing some 5000 people, after al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya is an Egyptian Islamist movement, and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union and Egyptian governments...
followers of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman
Omar Abdel-Rahman
Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman , commonly known in the United States as "The Blind Sheikh", is a blind Egyptian Muslim leader who is currently serving a life sentence at the Butner Medical Center which is part of the Butner Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina, United...
attempted to take control there. In the following years al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya is an Egyptian Islamist movement, and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union and Egyptian governments...
waged war against the state and against foreigners. In one year (1993) 1106 persons were killed or wounded. More police (120) than terrorists (111) were killed that year and "several senior police officials and their bodyguards were shot dead in daylight ambushes." The terror climaxed in 1997 when at least 71 people, mostly Swiss tourists, were killed by al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya gunmen at the Hatshepsut Temple
Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut
The Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, the Djeser-Djeseru , is located beneath the cliffs at Deir el Bahari on the west bank of the Nile near the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. The mortuary temple is dedicated to the sun god Amon-Ra and is located next to the mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II,...
outside Luxor
Luxor
Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt and the capital of Luxor Governorate. The population numbers 487,896 , with an area of approximately . As the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open air museum", as the ruins of the temple...
. For several years Egypt was free of Islamist attacks until July 2005 when 86 people were killed
2005 Sharm el-Sheikh attacks
The 2005 Sharm el-Sheikh attacks were a series of terror attacks on July 23, 2005, perpetrated by an Islamist organization, targeting the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, located on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula...
and over 150 were wounded in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh
Sharm el-Sheikh
Sharm el-Sheikh is a city situated on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, in South Sinai Governorate, Egypt, on the coastal strip along the Red Sea. Its population is approximately 35,000...
.
In 2007-8 Egypt witnessed more than 150 demonstrations and strikes. "Some were violent and required heavy deployment of the security forces."
Human rights
The Emergency Law remained in force during Mubarak's presidency and provided a basis for arbitrary detention and unfair trials. In 2009 Human Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
estimated between 5,000 and 10,000 Egyptians were held without charge. Police and security forces regularly used torture and brutality. According to the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights , founded in April 1985 and with its headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, is a non-profit NGO and one of the longest-standing bodies for the defense of human rights in Egypt. It investigates, monitors, and reports on human rights violations...
, 701 cases of torture at Egyptian police stations were documented from 1985 to 2011, and 204 victims died of torture and mistreatment. The group contends that crimes of torture `occur in Egyptian streets in broad daylight, at police checkpoints, and in people's homes in flagrant violation of the people's dignity and freedom.`
Freedom of Expression, association
Freedom of association
Freedom of association is the individual right to come together with other individuals and collectively express, promote, pursue and defend common interests....
and assembly
Freedom of assembly
Freedom of assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue and defend common interests...
was limited under Mubarak. The Press Law, Publications Law, and the penal code regulated the press, and called for punishment by fines or imprisonment for those who criticized the president. Freedom house upgraded Egypt's Press Freedom status in 2008 from "Not Free" to "Partly Free" in recognition not of a liberalization of government policy, but because
"of the courage of Egyptian journalists to cross “red lines” that previously restricted their work and in recognition of the greater range of viewpoints represented in the Egyptian media and blogosphere. This progress occurred in spite of the government’s ongoing—and in some cases increasing—harassment, repression, and imprisonment of journalists."In 2005 Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders is a France-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985, by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Jean-François Julliard has served as Secretary General since 2008...
placed Egypt 143rd out of 167 nations on press freedoms, and its 2006 report cited continued harassment and, in three cases, imprisonment, of journalists. The two sources agree that promised reforms on the subject have been disappointingly slow or uneven in implementation.
Economy
During the 1990s, a series of International Monetary Fund arrangements, coupled with massive external debt relief resulting from Egypt's participation in the Gulf War coalition, helped Egypt improve its macroeconomic performance.
In the last two decades of Mubarak's reign, inflation was lowered from double-digit to a single digit.
Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) increased fourfold between 1981 and 2006, from US$ 1355 in 1981, to US$ 2525 in 1991, to US$ 3686 in 2001 and to an estimated US$ 4535 in 2006.
However monetary restructuring, especially the flotation of the Egyptian pound, the liberalization
Economic liberalization
Economic liberalization is a very broad term that usually refers to fewer government regulations and restrictions in the economy in exchange for greater participation of private entities; the doctrine is associated with classical liberalism...
of the country's money markets, a reform of the tax system and strategic reductions in governmental social spending, resulted in "staggering hardships for the majority of the people" according to at least one observer. With housing scarcer and more expensive "marriage became harder for young people; it became common to have a family of six or seven living together in a single room."
As of 1989, early in the Mubarak era, Egypt continued to have a skewed distribution of wealth; about 2,000 families had annual incomes in excess of 35,000 Egyptian pounds (£E), while more than 4 million people earned less than £E200.
Social conditions in Egypt improved but modernization "did not succeed in reaching a critical mass of its citizens," furthermore "some of the recent gains were reversed due to the 2008 food price crisis and fuel price shock and to the global crisis-related slowdown in economic activity." According to the World Bank:
infant mortality and malnutrition among children under five both decreased by half and life expectancy rose from 64 to 71 years. The economy and the living standards for the vast majority of the population improved, although in an uneven manner. While 18% of the Egyptian population still lives below the national poverty line, this figure goes up to 40% in rural Upper Egypt – and an additional 20% of the population has experienced poverty at one point during the last decade, heightening a sense of social vulnerability and insecurity.
State corruption
While in office, political corruption in the Mubarak administration's Ministry of Interior rose dramatically, due to the increased power over the institutional system that is necessary to secure the prolonged presidency. Such corruption has led to the imprisonment of political figures and young activists without trials, illegal undocumented hidden detention facilities, and rejecting universities, mosques, newspapers staff members based on political inclination. On a personnel level, each individual officer is allowed to violate citizens' privacy in his area using unconditioned arrests due to the emergency lawEmergency law in Egypt
Emergency law in Egypt was first enacted in 1958, as Law No. 162 of 1958 and has remained in effect since 1967, except for an 18-month break in 1980...
.
In 2010, Transparency International
Transparency International
Transparency International is a non-governmental organization that monitors and publicizes corporate and political corruption in international development. It publishes an annual Corruption Perceptions Index, a comparative listing of corruption worldwide...
's Corruption Perceptions Index
Corruption Perceptions Index
Since 1995, Transparency International publishes the Corruption Perceptions Index annually ranking countries "by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys." The CPI generally defines corruption as "the misuse of public power for private...
report assessed Egypt with a CPI score of 3.1 out of 10.0, based on perceptions of the degree of corruption from business people and country analysts, (10 being no corruption and 0 being totally corrupt). Egypt ranked 98th out of the 178 countries included in the report.
Society and education
Early in the Mubarak presidency (1986), a census found Egypt's population at 50.4 million, including about 2.3 million Egyptians working in other countries. More than 34% of the population was twelve years old or younger, and 68% under the age of thirty. Fewer than 3% of Egyptians were sixty-five years or older. Like most developing countries there was a steady influx of rural inhabitants to the urban areas, but just over half the population still lived in villages. In 1989 average life expectancy at birth was 59 for men and 60 for women. The infant mortality rate was 94 deaths per 1,000 births.Under a law pass shortly before the Mubarak presidency, the structure of pre-university public education in Egypt made a nine-year education compulsory. Despite this most parents removed their children from school before they graduated from ninth grade. The basic cycle included six years of primary school and after passing special examinations, three years of intermediate school. Another special examinations gained admittance to the non-compulsory secondary cycle (grades ten through twelve). Secondary students chose between a general (college preparatory) curriculum of humanities, mathematics, or the sciences: and a technical curriculum of agriculture, communications, or industry. Students could advance between grades only after they received satisfactory scores on standardized tests.
As in many poor countries the enrollment rate for girls lagged boys. In 1985-86, early in the Mubark presidency, only 45% of all primary students were girls. An estimated 75% of girls between the ages of six and twelve were enrolled in primary school but 94% of boys. In Upper Egypt less than 30% of all students were girls. Girls also dropped out of primary school more frequently than boys. Girls accounted for about 41 percent of total intermediate school enrollment and 39 percent of secondary school enrollment. Among all girls aged twelve to eighteen in 1985-86, only 46 percent were enrolled in school.
Overthrow
Mubarak was ousted after 18 days of demonstrations during the 2011 Egyptian revolution2011 Egyptian revolution
The 2011 Egyptian revolution took place following a popular uprising that began on Tuesday, 25 January 2011 and is still continuing as of November 2011. The uprising was mainly a campaign of non-violent civil resistance, which featured a series of demonstrations, marches, acts of civil...
when, on 11 February, Vice President Omar Suleiman
Omar Suleiman
Omar Suleiman is a former Egyptian army general, politician, diplomat, and intelligence officer. A leading figure in Egypt's intelligence system beginning in 1986, Suleiman was appointed to the long-vacant Vice Presidency by then-President Hosni Mubarak on 29 January 2011...
announced that Mubarak had resigned as president and transferred authority to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces consists of a body of 20 senior officers in the Egyptian military. As a consequence of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the Council took the power to govern Egypt from its departing President Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011.The junta meets regularly, as...
. On 13 April, a prosecutor ordered Mubarak and both his sons to be detained for 15 days of questioning about allegations of corruption and abuse of power. He was then ordered to stand trial on charges of premeditated murder
Premeditated murder
Premeditated murder is the crime of wrongfully causing the death of another human being after rationally considering the timing or method of doing so, in order to either increase the likelihood of success, or to evade detection or apprehension.State laws in the United States vary as to definitions...
of peaceful protestors during the revolution.
See also
- 2011 Egyptian revolution2011 Egyptian revolutionThe 2011 Egyptian revolution took place following a popular uprising that began on Tuesday, 25 January 2011 and is still continuing as of November 2011. The uprising was mainly a campaign of non-violent civil resistance, which featured a series of demonstrations, marches, acts of civil...
- Hosni MubarakHosni MubarakMuhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011....
- Liberalism in EgyptLiberalism in EgyptLiberalism in Egypt or Egyptian liberalism is a political ideology that traces its beginnings to the 19th century.-Introduction:Egyptian self-government, education, and the continued plight of Egypt's peasant majority deteriorated most significantly under British occupation. Slowly, an organized...
- Terrorism in EgyptTerrorism in EgyptTerrorism in Egypt refers to terrorist attacks in Egypt, many of them linked to Islamic extremism. Targets have included government officials, police, tourists and the Christian minority...