Dec 26, 4:01 PM (ET) - CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - President Hosni Mubarak said Tuesday that laws to be passed in 2007 would improve democracy and abolish Egypt's 25-year state of emergency, but rights activists said they doubted the long-serving leader would liberalize the country.Laying out next year's legislative agenda, Mubarak asked lawmakers to amend 34 articles in the Egyptian constitution to "consecrate the people's sovereignty as a source of power and give parliament more authority to monitor the government. Today's historic step opens the door wide for democracy and its practice," Mubarak said in a speech at his palace in Cairo. After he finished, the parliament met to consider his proposals.
A leading Egyptian rights activist, Hesham Kasem, was skeptical of the president's pledge as he has promised greater democracy many times before during his 25 years in power. "We have to go back to the gap between the regime's actual practices and the demand for amendments," said Kasem, president of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. Previous amendments were "followed by theatrical debate while everything was already fixed."