On 1 August, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi approved a law, previously approved by parliament, allowing for the non-disciplinary dismissal of public employees. Referred to in the media as the ‘Law on the Dismissal of Employees Belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood’, the new legislation allows public administrations to dismiss any civil servant suspected of belonging to groups classified as ‘terrorist’ in Egypt, as well as those who ‘harm public services or the economic interests of the state’.

It began with a series of fatal railway accidents. On 26 March 2021, a train collision in the Sohag Governorate in Upper Egypt killed 20 people and injured 165. Twenty-two days later, another accident occurred in the north of the country, killing 11 and injuring 98. Faced with criticism of his management following the accidents, the minister of transport and former army general Kamel al-Wazir accused “extremist and rebel elements” allegedly belonging to terrorist groups including the Muslim Brotherhood, banned in the country since 2013, of being behind the “sabotage.”

As proof of his charges, the Minister announced that he had identified 268 Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated “elements” within the transport sector, whom he could not sack as Egyptian law did not allow the dismissal of civil servants or employees of state-owned companies except for disciplinary reasons.

On 5 May 2021, a member of parliament from the pro-regime Mostaqbal Watan party introduced the new law before parliament. While characterised in the media as primarily aimed at the dismissal of employees with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, the law’s ambiguous and wide-ranging provisions are raising fears that any slightly critical voice within the public sector could be targeted.

“The dismissal of employees belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood is just the tip of the iceberg. This law targets any public employee who opposes the regime, regardless of their affiliation. The government is well aware that most of the Muslim Brotherhood are either in prison or in exile,” Kamal Abu Aita, the former minister of manpower, tells Equal Times. He argues that the law is being presented as anti-Muslim Brotherhood in order to gain public approval.

According to Abu Aita: “The current regime always labels anyone who is not pro-regime as a member or sympathiser of the Muslim Brotherhood so that it can easily hunt down and punish them.”

While the text of the law does not explicitly mention the Muslim Brotherhood, its second article authorises the dismissal of any public servant whose name appears on the terrorist list. But as Abu Aita argues, in a country where any opponent or trade unionist who is arrested can be charged without hesitation with belonging to a terrorist group or sharing the objectives of a terrorist group, “the circle of public employees targeted by the legislation exceeds those who belong to the Muslim Brotherhood.

“I know several trade unionists and liberal labour activists who appear on the list of terrorist organisations due to their political affiliation, including the architect Mamdouh Hamza who was placed on the list for criticising the regime’s policies on social networks, and Yehia Hussein Abdel Hadi, who has been detained without trial since January 2019 for participating in an event commemorating the 8th anniversary of the 25 January Revolution. They could be targeted by this law,” adds the former minister. More than 60,000 political prisoners are currently behind bars in Egypt, including 30,000 in pre-trial detention, according to NGOs.

According to Ahmed al-Naggar, former editor-in-chief of the government-owned daily Al-Ahram, the law aims to dismiss any official whom the regime finds undesirable, as it judges employees by “their political intentions and positions, not by their actions”. As al-Naggar warned in statements made to the local news website Daaarb: “The law constitutes a return of the inquisition in the public sector and will have very dangerous social consequences.”

The new law could further increase workplace monitoring of employees’ political affiliations. “The law would turn employees of public authorities and administrations into informers who help the security apparatus to hunt down any opponent, as well as any honest employee who criticises corruption in the institution where he or she works,” Ammar Ali Hassan, professor of political science at Helwan University, tells Equal Times.

“The regime wants employees who remain silent, who don’t complain about their working conditions and who don’t criticise power,” he says.

After the law came into effect on 1 August, the government sent a copy to all state institutions in order to begin reviewing employee profiles, an unnamed official source told Sky News Arabia on 10 August. On 22 August, the ministry of transport announced that it had transferred 190 public servants allegedly belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood to positions unrelated to the operation of the railways, pending an investigation into their political affiliation, with a view to dismissing them.

In a statement issued the same day the law came into force, the supreme council of universities announced that it had begun to draw up a list of university professors and staff who “belong to terrorist groups and who try in various ways to prevent universities from carrying out their educational mission”.

Targeting workers who call for strikes

But according to activists and members of opposition parties, article 1 of the law presents even greater danger. It stipulates that all public employees who have “failed to meet their duties, as part of a bid to harm public services or the economic interests of the state” will be dismissed.

“This article represents a trap for employees. It paves the way for any public servant to be punished for calling for or participating in a strike or in any independent trade union activities. According to this law, they would be failing in their duties and hindering production or the functioning of state services,” warns Wael Tawfik, a member of the workers’ committee at the Socialist Popular Alliance Party (SPAP).

While the law provides the state with a means for keeping in check the highly politicised working class, which has always been a key player in and even the driving force behind most of the uprisings in modern Egypt, it will also be a significant instrument for reducing the number of employees in the public sector, which the regime and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) consider to be bloated. According to official figures, the public sector and related services employ around six million people (not including the armed forces).

“This new legislation gives the state new reasons to reduce the number of public sector employees. This is in line with the demands of the IMF, which granted Egypt a US$12 billion loan at the end of 2016,” adds Elhami al-Merghani, vice president of SPAP.

Since 2020, thousands of employees have organised sit-ins in protest of the government’s policy of closing large companies and factories that it deems to be in debt. Seven thousand workers and employees of the Egyptian Iron & Steel Co took part in the most recent sit-in in January 2021 following the government’s decision to close the company and turn its six million square metre site into a residential development. According to certain analyses, this policy is also aimed at paving the way for the economic ambitions of the army, which is increasingly expanding its presence in civilian production.

“The regime has adopted a policy that is hostile to the working class. It has closed several companies and dismissed thousands of workers in recent years on the pretext that these companies are not profitable,” says al-Merghani.

While the government may be pleased with its hostile policy towards opponents and redundant public sector employees, this policy could have disastrous long-term effects as it risks increasing unemployment and unrest in a country where a large part of the population has long depended on the public sector for its income. As al-Merghani warns: “The government can use the machinery of repressive laws to silence employees, but this oppression always leads to disaster.”