When they started expressing
their claim to power by assassinating tourists, Copts, members of the gov-
ernment and even by attempting to kill Mubarak himself, he arrested more
than 25,000 of them (Ghanem 1999). On account of such internal political
instability martial law remained in force during his presidency after the state
of emergency had initially been declared under Sadat. Thus Egypt was re-
duced to a police state with curbed freedoms for the people and a staggering
democratization process.