Egypt: 'The Freedom to Scream' in a 'Soft Dictatorship'

Here is an excerpt from a New York Times article from a couple of weeks prior that makes for an interesting read about the state of civil liberties in Egypt.

CAIRO — In Egypt, there is relative freedom to complain about and criticize the government, even the feared security services. Egypt is not Syria in that way, or Saudi Arabia, where public criticism aimed at the state is often dealt with harshly.

But that is where freedom stops.

“I call it the freedom to scream,” said Fahmy Howeidy, a writer who has often criticized the government without penalty. “You can say what you want. But you cannot act.”

The detention this month of Philip Rizk, an Egyptian-German who organized a peaceful march in support of Palestinians in Gaza, received international attention because of his dual nationality and because he was held incommunicado and without charge.

But what made Mr. Rizk’s case extraordinary was how routine it actually was, according to political activists, political scientists, bloggers, Islamists, former prisoners and human rights groups here and abroad. It is all too common for the security services to grab citizens, detain them without charge, refuse to release any information concerning their whereabouts and deny them even the minimal protections, under an emergency law passed decades ago to help fight terrorism.

“In Egypt, it’s sort of a soft dictatorship,” said Gamal Eid, executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information in Cairo. “They want to have a pleasant image. But Egypt is ruled by the security apparatus.”

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