Last week, Egypt’s House of Representatives approved amendments to the country’s anti-terrorism law that strengthen the powers of the country’s presidency and armed forces. With these changes, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi can take “measures to preserve security and public order”. There is no doubt that the Egyptian authorities will define the preservation of security and public order as broadly as possible. The result is a law to fight terrorism that will likely be broader than the emergency measures Egypt’s leaders lifted a week before, which they had routinely used against Sisi’s violent and peaceful opponents. The Egyptian state gives, and the Egyptian state takes back.

None of this was shocking, although my blood ran cold when I read that researching the military and writing about it without written permission from the government would result in a significant fine. If I was doing my thesis research now rather than in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I would never have embarked on the project that became my first book.

But that’s the point, of course: to sow fear in the hearts of graduate students, academics and journalists. This is not just insignificant malice, but legal cover to abuse people like poor Italian graduate student Giulio Regeni, who was not in Egypt to study the armed forces but was nonetheless hunted down. , tortured and killed for researching something the government did not do. As.

Last week, Egypt’s House of Representatives approved amendments to the country’s anti-terrorism law that strengthen the powers of the country’s presidency and armed forces. With these changes, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi can take “measures to preserve security and public order”. There is no doubt that the Egyptian authorities will define the preservation of security and public order as broadly as possible. The result is a law to fight terrorism that will likely be broader than the emergency measures Egypt’s leaders lifted a week before, which they had routinely used against Sisi’s violent and peaceful opponents. The Egyptian state gives, and the Egyptian state takes back.

None of this was shocking, although my blood ran cold when I read that researching the military and writing about it without written permission from the government would result in a significant fine. If I was doing my thesis research now rather than in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I would never have embarked on the project that became my first book.

But that’s the point, of course: to sow fear in the hearts of graduate students, academics and journalists. This is not just insignificant malice, but legal cover to abuse people like poor Italian graduate student Giulio Regeni, who was not in Egypt to study the armed forces but was nonetheless hunted down. , tortured and killed for researching something the government did not do. As.

With all the power in the hands of Sisi and his advisers, it may seem odd that they bother with amendments to the legislation and push it through the Egyptian House of Representatives. Why do authoritarians hostile to virtually all aspects of democratic politics so often find it necessary to mimic democratic practices? What’s in it for them? In fact, a lot.

For the uninitiated, the Egyptian Constitution provides for an open, democratic and fair system of government. For example, article 4 states: “Sovereignty belongs to the people alone, who exercise and protect it. They are the source of power. They safeguard their national unity, which is based on the principle of equality, justice and equal opportunities between citizens, as provided for in this Constitution. And the following article declares that the Egyptian political system is based on the peaceful transfer of power, respect for human rights, separation of powers and “partisan multiplicity”. Sounds pretty good, right? The drafters of the constitution clearly understood what a liberal and democratic constitution looks like.

But they were also cunning enough to include phrases such as “in the manner specified by law”, “in the manner organized by law” and “in accordance with the law” throughout the text. It may seem semantic, but this kind of formulation allows the Egyptian authorities to have it both ways: institutions that resemble those of liberal and democratic regimes but with traps that facilitate repression. Although Egyptians are formally granted freedom of research (Article 66) and freedom of publication (Article 71), these rights are in reality limited by subjecting them to laws concerning incitement and “undermining the honor.” of individuals ”, which are interpreted in ways that do not really protect the right to research and publish.

That explains how it works, but it doesn’t explain why the Egyptian government bothered to take advantage of pseudo-democratic practices to situate undemocratic provisions in law. Since Sisi and his counterparts in other undemocratic countries have all the power, it hardly seems necessary, but they benefit from it in two ways. First, the codification of the amendments to the anti-terrorism law provides an enforcement mechanism that contributes to political control, which is the main directive of the Egyptian state. Second, and more importantly, it gives supporters of the regime a way to deflect or undermine criticism at home and abroad.

On the occasion when the US State Department might express its “concern” or even its “greatest concern” about the repressive nature of the Egyptian political system, a spokesperson for the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs may simply refer to the report. fact that Egypt is a parliamentary system, where there is a separation of powers and a constitution in which human rights, freedoms and the rule of law are enshrined without lying. This is what Stephen Colbert called “truth” or “truth,” which means that a statement is true enough but does not capture the whole story. One can imagine an Egyptian official answering questions about the anti-terrorism amendments: “They were adopted by the parliament, which represents the Egyptian people, who are sovereign. This is how the system works. It is our law. We are a sovereign country. Anyone who has ever had a conversation with an Egyptian official about these kinds of issues knows exactly what I’m talking about.

It is not just an Egyptian phenomenon. Turkish, Hungarian, Russian, Polish and other officials use the same kind of talking points. If a Turkish diplomat were asked why there are so many journalists imprisoned in Turkey, even though article 28 of the constitution guarantees freedom of the press, he would tend to say that these guarantees do not apply. . This is because, the diplomat would say, the journalists and editors in question sought to undermine the irrevocable articles 1, 2 and 3 of the constitution, which establish Turkey as a democratic and secular republic governed by the rule of law. Many imprisoned Turkish journalists of course did nothing of the sort. But because there are provisions in the constitution that limit the same freedoms set out in the documents, the persecution of journalists for political reasons is perfectly legal, which Turkish officials often argue.

Does anyone believe what representatives of authoritarian regimes have to say? It’s hard to tell. Staying on Turkey’s lead, supporters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) look at you like you’re crazy to suggest that Turkey is not a democracy and that in democracies the journalists should not be in jail. Likewise, Egyptian officials reject Western assessments of their country’s deplorable human rights record, pointing out that those imprisoned are there for a reason and that independent Egyptian judges put them there. This is only plausible for supporters of the regime, of course. That said, it’s not about convincing supporters of something they already believe in. On the contrary, situating restrictive measures and authoritarian tools within a legal system and constitutional order helps to ward off criticism from foreign governments, international human rights groups and the few permanent national opponents.

Activists have often pleaded with American and European leaders to hold authoritarians like Sisi to their own words – to judge them by their constitution’s commitments to respect individual rights. It is a reasonable strategy, but the authoritarians have used a kind of legalism as the outer perimeter of the regime’s defense. By asserting their right to abuse their own citizens (and foreigners) against the law, they have sought to turn constitutionalism against their critics. So far it has worked.