CAIRO, 17 June 2003 — The Egyptian Parliament yesterday abolished the controversial state security courts, while outlawing forced labor in the country’s prisons.
Human rights groups had welcomed the reforms by President Hosni Mubarak who discussed the measures with Cabinet ministers, as citizens’ rights were still under curtailment by the state of emergency called in 1981.
In state security courts the state prosecutor’s obligation to produce evidence is less than that in normal Egyptian courts. Often the testimonies of police are sufficient to make convictions.
The state security courts among other things were responsible for suspected extremists, terrorists and human rights activists. Mubarak was expected soon to sign the new measures into law.
They were formulated by a committee of the ruling party, Egypt’s National Democratic Party under the president’s son Gamal Mubarak.
