New Egyptian legislation to oppose street thugs
Egypt, Politics, 8/19/1997

The Egyptian Interior Ministry has invoked an emergency law, enacted after President Anwar El-Sadat's assassination in 1981, and ordered the detention of 120 alleged offenders without trial, in an attempt to face the escalating problem of street thugs, or "Baltagia."

"Baltagia" is defined as people who use violence and weapons to threaten or mug others, posing a threat to law and order as well as citizens' rights to a secure life.

There is no legal text defining an act of Baltagia, so the Interior Ministry is preparing new legislation, including a series of precautionary measures to help prevent street violence. The new Baltagia law includes penalties such as house-arrest, imprisonment for long periods, or banishment of the thug back to his hometown.

Interior Ministry officials said that the new legislation would only be invoked against terrorists and drug-traffickers, and Interior Minister Hassan El-Alfi declared war on street thugs.

The new law is also acting to amend the weapons and ammunition law, providing harsher penalties for carrying unlicensed weapons amidst a gathering of people, and it would also prohibit use of knives, daggers and swords for illegal purposes as well as the self-defense spray which thugs recently began using to temporarily paralyze their victims.

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