Egypt extends state of emergency for seventh time

Egypt's parliament has approved a presidential decree to extend the nationwide state of emergency for the seventh time, state media reported on Sunday.

The decision, made by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, is due to go into effect on Tuesday, and will allow regime security to continue their clampdown on activists and journalists.

The emergency law expands police powers of arrest, surveillance and seizures and can limit freedom of movement. 

Sisi first declared the heightened security state following a bombing of Coptic Christian churches in April 2017 by extremists.

Since then the state of emergency has been renewed by parliament every three months.

When emergency laws were first introduced, critics raised fears that authorities would use the heightened measures to crackdown on political opponents and expand extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, without stopping terrorist attacks.

Sisi, a former army chief who led the military in ousting the country's first freely elected president Mohamed Morsi, is accused of leading a relentless crackdown on both pro-democracy campaigners and Islamists.

The majority of experts view Sisi's government as the most repressive in the history of modern Egypt.