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Egypt in Tumult as Court Orders Mubarak Freed

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At an airport in Cairo, Egyptian military and police personnel carried coffins with the bodies of police officers who were killed near Rafah in the northern Sinai.
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK Published: August 19, 2013 Advertise on NYTimes.com 270 Comments FACEBOOK MOST E-MAILED TWITTER GOOGLE+ SAVE E-MAIL MOST VIEWED

CAIRO A court on Monday ordered the release of former President Hosni Mubarak, and for the first time it was conceivable he might go free a measure of how far the tumult now shaking Egypt has rolled back the sweeping changes and soaring hopes that followed his exit two and a half years ago. Few legal analysts thought a release was likely, at least in the coming weeks. But under the government installed last month by Gen. AbdulFattah el-Sisi, they say, it is no longer a foregone conclusion that prosecutors will continue to find reasons to detain the former autocrat, who was arrested after the uprising against his rule in 2011.

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Some analysts said that even the possibility of Mr. Mubaraks release, previously unthinkable, provided another sign of the return of his authoritarian style of government. Since the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, the interim government has brought back not only prominent faces of

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Islamists Killed While in Custody, Egypt Confirms(August 19, 2013) The Lede: Islamists Blamed for Uptick in Sinai Violence After Morsis Ouster(July 17, 2013) Egypt Lashes Out at Foreign News Medias Coverage(August 19, 2013) Leaving Military Aid Intact, U.S. Takes Steps to Halt Economic Help to Egypt(August 19, 2013) Israel Escalating Efforts to Shape Allies Strategy(August 19, 2013)

the Mubarak era but signature elements of that autocratic state, including an emergency law removing the right to a trial and curbs on police abuse, the appointment of generals as governors across the provinces and moves to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood again as a terrorist threat. The Brotherhoods spiritual leader, Mohamed Badie, was arrested early Tuesday. A private television network that supports General Sisi broadcast footage of Mr. Badie in custody. The police scarcely bothered to offer a credible explanation for the deaths of three dozen Morsi supporters in custody over the weekend. After repeatedly shifting stories, they ultimately said the detainees had suffocated from tear gas during a failed escape attempt. But photographs taken at the morgue on Monday showed that at least two had been badly burned from the shoulders up and that others bore evidence of torture. Security officers have a new bounce in their step. They are again pulling men from their cars at checkpoints for interrogation because they have beards, or dealing out arbitrary beatings with a sense of impunity Mubarak-era hallmarks that had receded in recent years. Among civilians, even those outside the Muslim Brotherhood, fear of the police is growing. Badr Abdelatty, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, denied any resemblance between the new government and Mr. Mubaraks. The emergency law is just for one month and for one objective: fighting terrorism, he said, using the term that the new government applies to both civil disobedience and acts of violence by Islamist opponents of the military takeover. The only way to fight terrorism is to apply the rule of law, and some emergency measures for just one month, to bring back law and order.

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The release of former Egypt President Hosni Mubarak, shown in detention near Cairo on April 15, was ordered on Monday.

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More than 1,000 Brotherhood members and other supporters of Mr. Morsi have died since Wednesday in a Post a Comment police crackdown, and his ouster has set off a wave of Read All Comments (270) retaliatory violence from his supporters, mainly targeting churches around the country and security forces in the relatively lawless northern Sinai. In the latest episode there, militants killed 25 police officers and wounded 3 others on Monday in an attack on their minibuses. Officials said the bodies were face down with bound hands, evidently assassinated.
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Egyptian state and private television networks, all pro-government now, broadcast images of the bodies return to Cairo, sometimes under a heading about Egypts fight against terrorism. The Muslim Brotherhood, which has denounced those killings, held protests and marches by thousands of its supporters in Cairo and across the country, as it has every day for the six weeks since Mr. Morsis ouster. Some analysts said Monday that the new government was arguably more authoritarian than Mr. Mubaraks. The Mubarak state was actually less repressive than what we are seeing now, said Shadi Hamid, research director for the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. In terms of sheer number of people killed, what we are seeing is unprecedented for Egypt. But where Mr. Mubaraks supporters were diffident or self-serving, Mr. Hamid said, General Sisi has the fervent backing of millions of ordinary Egyptians, many of whom think the army has not been sufficiently brutal against the Muslim Brotherhood.

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That is what makes this new authoritarian order much more resilient and harder to dislodge, he said. One human rights advocate said the symbolism of Mr. Mubaraks release might help. For someone like me, it would be greatly helpful, said Hossam Bahgat, founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and one of only a few advocates who have questioned General Sisis declaration that he was advancing the 2011 revolution by removing the elected president.
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Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London, and Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo.
A version of this article appears in print on August 20, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Egypt in Tumult As Court Orders Mubarak Freed.
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Nan Socolow

Cayman Islands, British West Indies

Hosni Mubarak at 85 is at the end of his tether. Who knows why he has been freed from his detention? He won't be a lion amok on the streets of Cairo, now carnage incarnate. Egypt has spiraled downward into a period that will last years, maybe decades, till equilibrium comes. Democracy never had and never will have meaning in the pharaoh"s country on the Nile.
Aug. 19, 2013 at 7:34 p.m.
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Brendan

Westwood, MA

One hopes that Egypt does not go the way of Algeria after the military interrupted the democratic process there back in 1991. When the Islamic Salvation Front party looked like it was going to be successful the military steppe din and cancelled the 2nd round of the elections spurring 8 years of bloody civil war. In Egypt it looks increasingly like the military was biding its time waiting for the right time to step in and oust the Muslim Brotherhood led government. The military took advantage of popular dissatisfaction with the MB government and the popular unrest against the government and then stepped in to remove the government in response to the discontent that it had fostered. That is not how democracy works!

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