Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has approved amendments to the country’s state of emergency that grant him and security agencies additional powers, which the government says are needed to combat the coronavirus outbreak.
An international rights group condemned the amendments, saying the government has used the global pandemic to “expand, not reform, Egypt’s abusive Emergency Law.”
The new amendments allow the president to take measures to contain the virus, such as suspending classes at schools and universities and quarantining those returning from abroad. But they also include expanded powers to ban public and private meetings, protests, celebrations and other forms of assembly.