Counterterrorism Strategies in Egypt : Permanent Exceptions in the War on Terror

This book reveals how counterterrorism discourses and practices became the main tool of a systematic violation of human rights in Egypt after the Arab Uprising.

It examines how the civic and democratic uprising in Egypt turned into robust authoritarianism under the pretence of counterterrorism and the ‘war on terror’. By interrogating Egypt’s counterterrorism legislation, the book identifies a correlation between counterterrorism narratives and the systemic violation of human rights. It examines the construction of a national security state that has little tolerance for dissent, political debate or the questioning of official policy, and how the anti-terrorism measures undertaken are actually anti-democracy strategies. The book also traces 150 years of Egyptian counterterrorism and counterinsurgency discourse, and analyses how this links with these practices of human rights assaults. By investigating how this discourse constructs and reproduces knowledge and meaning about terrorism and counterterrorism practices in Egypt, the book highlights how the government legitimises these violations against the population in the interests of the ruling elite.

This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism studies, critical terrorism studies, discourse theory, Middle Eastern politics, decoloniality, and International Relations.