Amendments to terrorism law may make rental contracts national security issue, allow property confiscation

Authorities could soon be empowered to confiscate rented property under amendments to the terrorism law and to prosecute landlords for failing to register new tenants’ contracts.

The amendments, which bring rental contracts within the purview of national security, are currently pending discussion in the legislature, an MP told Mada Masr on Sunday. 

Critics of the bill, however, suggest that it would allow the government to target political opposition under vague terrorism-related charges.

If passed, the bill will empower the Public Prosecution to confiscate temporarily any real estate units suspected to have been used for the purposes of “terrorism.”

Nasser Amin, the director of the Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Practice told Mada Masr that the amendments would provide a new pretext for the targeting of political opposition by confiscating places of residence or other properties, even if those arrested do not own the properties.

For Amin, the terrorism law is fundamentally flawed due to what it sets out as acts of terrorism: a list that comprises over 70 different activities. “The state can deem a statement or research to be an act of terrorism under the arbitrary argument that these activities harm national unity, undermine national security or destabilize public order,” Amin told Mada Masr. 

Prosecuting authorities in Egypt have repeatedly arrested political dissidents, activists, human rights workers, journalists and doctors under the vague definition of the terrorism law.  Those arrested under such charges are often kept in prolonged remand detention pending investigations. 

Detainees currently held on terrorism charges include postgraduate student Ahmed Samir al-Santawy, journalist Solafa Magdy, lawyer Mahienour al-Massry, activist and film editor Sanaa Seif, blogger Abdel Rahman Tarek, activist Alaa Abd El Fattah, Strong Egypt Party leader Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights gender researcher Patrick George Zaki, and lawyer Hoda Abdel Moneim. 

In addition to amendments to require the confiscation of rented or owned real estate units, the law introduces two other articles that would expand state control over rental properties, introducing a one-year prison sentence and a minimum fine of LE5,000 for landlords who fail to report new tenant agreements to the local police station by providing a copy of the tenant’s national ID or passport within 24 hours of signing the lease.

The amendments will also require all existing rental contracts, whether via the old or the new rental schemes and for administrative, commercial, or residential purposes, to be reported to the police stations. Unit owners will be allowed 30 days to legalize their situation once the law becomes official. 

The amendments were first floated in an identical bill that was submitted by the government in March 2019. The 2019 bill made its way to the relevant House select committees, which reviewed and approved the bill in May 2019. The committees then sent the bill to the former House Speaker Ali Abdel Aal to submit it for discussion in a general session. However, the bill was never put forward before the end of the previous House term in January, MP Abla al-Hawary, a member of the House Legislative and Constitutional Committee, told Mada Masr.

The government submitted the bill to the House again in late January, according to Hawary, who told Mada Masr that new House Speaker Hanafy al-Gebaly then submitted the bill to the Legislative and Constitutional Committee for review. Hawary added that the committee finalized its report, drawing largely on the report made by the special committees in the former House, and submitted it to Gebaly, who now is expected to schedule the bill for a discussion in a general session in the week beginning March 7.