UPDATE: At 11:00 pm, five hours after schedule, Egyptian President Husni Mubarak made his third pre-recorded speech to the nation. However, he did not step down, as had been expected. In one brief sentence that almost passed without notice, he delegated powers to the Vice President he appointed two weeks ago, intelligence chief Omar Suleiman. An, he said he had just proposed amending several articles [76, 77, 88, 93, 189] of the Egyptian constitution, and the annulment of another article [179] which, he said, would “clear the way to abolishing the Emergency Law”, once the security situation was ensured. Mubarak also said he would not be separated from the soil until he was buried beneath it.
Earlier this week, Egyptian human rights activist Hossam Baghat [founder and executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights] said, in an interview on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! radio program on 7 February: “Look, the consensus amongst everyone is right now that the solution can only begin with [Egypt’s President Husni] Mubarak stepping down. Now, there are some differences, technical differences, about, you know, whether he should resign fully, immediately, or whether he should step aside by delegating all of his powers to the vice president, like he did when he was hospitalized in 2004 and later in 2010, and then, in a couple of weeks, resign once we have ensured that we the provisions that are necessary for a meaningful presidential election. I am of the view that if Mubarak is to resign immediately, then it is 100 percent certain that Omar Suleiman will be elected within 60 days as president for a full presidential term of six years. That is not a prospect that would satisfy me as an advocate for democracy and human rights and someone who wants to see a real end to three decades of Mubarak rule. And Omar Suleiman’s succession will unfortunately be a continuation, in my view, of the Mubarak regime and the violations perpetrated under Mubarak. So I am of the view that Mubarak must immediately step down by delegating all of his authorities to his vice president, that we need within a couple of weeks to put to a public referendum some amendments of the constitutional provisions to make sure that we can have free and fair presidential elections”.
The full radio program is posted
Baghat says about Omar Suleiman: “Look, he’s been in this position as director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service since 1993, but obviously we only learned about this in 2007, because up until then, he was not a public persona. We did not know who the head of our intelligence service was. Since 2007, he started to appear, but again, we only knew how he looked like and we knew his name. We knew absolutely nothing about him, until, of course, some truth started emerging about the U.S.-led so-called war on terror. And of course his name started featuring prominently in all the books that came out, the documents that were obtained through some of Freedom of Information requests and litigation in the United States, and that’s, of course, when we started to find out that he was the most reliable partner in the Middle East in the extraordinary rendition program. He oversaw the transfer and interrogation of terror suspects, not just in Egypt but in other countries of the region. And then, of course, there is the post-WikiLeaks era, in which we started to also read transcripts of private meetings that he held with some U.S. officials. And in them, we started to also find out more about his involvement in domestic affairs, not just in foreign policy issues, but also his role in the starvation of the people of Gaza, his role in using the economic blockade that the Egyptian government has been involved in, in order to pressure the Gazans to turn against Hamas and to pressure Hamas, as well, to accept to sign a deal in, you know, the Egyptian-brokered reconciliation with Fatah. And interestingly, it is exactly this that he’s been trying also with the protesters in Tahrir now, using economics, citing economic hardships, to turn the people against the protesters and also trying to control, at least for a few days, until very recently, trying to prohibit people from taking food and medical supplies and blankets into Tahrir Square for the protesters. And then, most recently, since his appointment as a vice president, he’s given one long TV interview with state television in which, of course, it became very clear that, you know, he accused all those that insisted on remaining in Tahrir Square despite the violence and and the shootings and the food deprivation, he accused all of us of implementing a foreign agenda. And he, you know, used implicit—and then, later, very explicit—threats of retaliation against us. Yesterday, with the round of negotiations, or so-called dialogue, that he had with some representatives of political forces, again, it became very clear that he does not enter these negotiations on an equal footing with representatives of the protesters. He sent everyone home and then decided to deliver a statement of what he called a consensus that resulted from these consultations. And later, we had a number of political—of representatives of political forces, most importantly the Muslim Brotherhood, saying, ‘That is not true. You know, we did not agree to these things. This was only a protocol session. It is the first session of this dialogue. Each one of us expressed their views, and then we were told that we will be invited back. And suddenly, we were surprised to see Suleiman announcing the understandings or agreements, as he called them, to Egyptian television’. And, of course, in this announcement that Suleiman made, he said, ‘No, the president is not going to resign. No, the president is not going to delegate his powers to his vice president. And no, we’re not going to lift the state of emergency immediately; we’re only going to do this when there is no longer a security threat’, which, of course, the government of Egypt says has been since 1981″…
Amnesty International earlier issued a statement calling for placing human rights at the center of changes taking place in Egypt, starting with abolition of the State of Emergency.
The AI statement called “for a curb on the sweeping powers of security forces, the release of prisoners of conscience, and for safeguards against torture to be introduced in a new human rights action plan addressed to the country’s authorities … The state of emergency that has endured since President Hosni Mubarak came to power in 1981 has led to widespread human rights violations.
Amnesty International’s Human Rights Agenda for Change demands that the Egyptian authorities take concrete actions as part of a political transition. It reflects longstanding demands made by Egyptian civil society. The concrete steps the authorities must take include:
· The state of emergency must be lifted immediately, arbitrary arrests halted and the whereabouts of all those detained revealed.
· The authorities must publicly condemn torture and move swiftly to eradicate it. Allegations of torture must be investigated, the perpetrators brought to justice and reparations provided to the victims.
· The authorities must order independent investigations into all cases where the security forces are reported to have used excessive force.
· Egyptians must be allowed to speak and act freely. The authorities must not criminalize the peaceful exercise of the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.
· The Egyptian judicial system must be reformed to ensure its independence and provide oversight of the security forces.
· The underlying demands of the current protests must be urgently addressed by ending discrimination against women and minorities and an adequate standard of living ensured for the whole population”.