An attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo last week could set back political gains since former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was toppled in a popular uprising this year, as the ruling army council takes measures to tighten security around the country.
Protesters scaled the building where Israel occupies the top two floors, replacing the Israeli flag with Egypt’s and seizing embassy documents from a storeroom on a lower floor before tossing them from a window to cheering crowds below.
The Israeli ambassador and his family fled Cairo that night in an Israeli military helicopter. Israel and the US issued anxious calls for Egypt to respect its controversial 1979 treaty with Israel and protect the embassy.
Egypt’s government swiftly offered reassurances it would boost security at the embassy and chase down those behind the attack, indicating the treaty was still safe.
However. many Egyptians worry the security crackdown that follows will undermine political freedoms gained since the uprising.
Officials have said emergency law, a key plank of Mubarak’s social control mechanisms in place since he took power in 1981, will be reactivated to try those involved in the embassy attack.
“This is the first time since the revolution that they transferred anyone to a state security court,” said Emad Gad of the al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. “There is already a bad -security situation in the country with crime rising. They [the ruling generals] are taking advantage of this.”
Activists and opposition parties have disowned the violence around the embassy, which they say sullies the uprising’s goals.
However, the revival of courts under emergency law will be just as worrying. Some of the demonstrators who moved on the embassy had come from a protest on Friday in Tahrir Square where one of the demands was scrapping the hated emergency laws immediately.
Analysts say Egypt’s democratic transition could suffer and some already see worrying signs of a slow return to the kind of tactics used by Mubarak’s security forces to stifle opponents.
Security officers raided offices of the al-Jazeera television channel on Sunday and detained staff in what the Qatar-based broadcaster said was an attempt to drive the channel, which had live coverage of the embassy incident, off the air.
Al-Jazeera was a target in the last days of Mubarak’s rule.
A security source said several other channels were shut down over licensing or other breaches of professional codes.
Changes in Egypt have been sweeping since Mubarak was ousted on Feb. 11.
His party was dissolved, his hated state security service was revamped and he and many familiar faces from his three decades of rule were sent to trial on charges ranging from corruption to conspiring to kill hundreds of protesters.
However, there is a deep sense among many of those who protested against Mubarak that his system remains in place although he has gone. An interim Cabinet now answers to a military council headed by Mubarak’s defense minister Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.
Tantawi did not turn up to give testimony behind closed doors at Mubarak’s trial on Sunday, saying he was busy handling the security crisis, state media said. The hearing has been delayed until later this month, fueling more suspicions.
“This is a sign and it’s possible there could be repercussions for the elections,” Gad said. “They have an interest in delaying — to let figures from the old NDP [National Democratic Party] form new political parties.”
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