The history of Egypt under Hosni Mubarak spans a period of 29 years, beginning with the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat and lasting until the Egyptian revolution of January 2011, when Mubarak was overthrown in a popular uprising as part of the broader Arab Spring movement.
His presidency was marked by a continuation of the policies pursued by his predecessor, including the liberalization of Egypt’s economy and a commitment to the 1979 Camp David Accords.
The Egyptian government under Mubarak also maintained close relations with the other member states of the Arab League, as well as the United States, Russia, India, and much of the Western World. However, international non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have repeatedly criticized his administration’s human rights record.
Concerns raised include political censorship, police brutality, arbitrary detention, torture, and restrictions on freedoms of speech, association, and assembly.
Mubarak’s presidency greatly influenced Egyptian society and politics. This is in large part due to Egypt’s political structure, in which the President must approve all pieces of legislation and state expenditures before they are enacted.
Unrest was not unknown during Mubarak’s reign. In February 1986, the Central Security Forces mutinied taking to the streets, rioting, burning and looting in demand for better pay. The uprising was the greatest challenge of the Mubarak presidency up to that point and only the second time in modern Egyptian history the Army was dispatched to Egyptian streets to restore order.
In 1992, 14,000 soldiers occupied the Cairo shantytown suburb of Imbaba (est. Population 1,000,000) for six-weeks arresting and removing some 5000 people, after al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya followers of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman attempted to take control there. In the following year’s al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya waged war against the state and against foreigners.
In one year (1993), 1106 persons were killed or wounded. More police (120) than terrorists (111) were killed that year and “several senior police officials and their bodyguards were shot dead in daylight ambushes. ”The terror climaxed in 1997 when at least 71 people, mostly Swiss tourists, were killed by al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya gunmen at the Hatshepsut Temple outside Luxor. For several years, Egypt was free of Islamist attacks until July 2005 when 86 people were killed and over 150 were wounded in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
In 2007-8, Egypt witnessed more than 150 demonstrations and strikes. “Some were violent and required heavy deployment of the security forces.”
While in office, political corruption in the Mubarak administration’s Ministry of Interior rose dramatically, due to the increased power over the institutional system that is necessary to secure the prolonged Presidency.
Such corruption has led to the imprisonment of political figures and young activists without trials,[41] illegal undocumented hidden detention facilities, and rejecting universities, mosques, newspapers staff members based on political inclination. On a personnel level, each individual officer is allowed to violate citizens’ privacy in his area using unconditioned arrests due to the emergency law.
In 2010, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index report assessed Egypt with a CPI score of 3.1 out of 10.0, based on perceptions of the degree of corruption from business people and country analysts, (10 being no corruption and 0 being very corrupt). Egypt ranked 98th out of the 178 countries included in the report.
Mubarak was ousted after 18 days of demonstrations during the 2011 Egyptian revolution [48] when, on 11 February, Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak had resigned as president and transferred authority to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.
On 13 April, a prosecutor ordered Mubarak and both his sons to be detained for 15 days of questioning about allegations of corruption and abuse of power. He was then ordered to stand trial on charges of premeditated murder of peaceful protestors during the revolution.
