Cairo - Egypt's parliament approved Monday a government request for a two-year extension to an emergency law that gives police sweeping powers of arrest.

The extension was approved by 315 lawmakers in the 454-seat parliament. It was opposed by 103 lawmakers, most of whom are from the Muslim Brotherhood opposition group.

Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak had promised during his election campaign of 2005 to substitute the emergency law, which expires at the end of May, with anti-terrorism legislation.

The government said it would introduce the anti-terror bill before the emergency law expired but failed to do so.

The law, which was enforced after the assassination of former president Anwar Sadat in 1981, gives the police wide powers to hold people without charge for long periods and restrict civil liberties by referring civilians to military courts.

Under emergency law, the government is holding at least 12,000 people without charge, human rights groups say.

"I fear that the motive behind extending the law is to undermine peaceful, non-violent opposition movements," Bahi al-Din Hasan, the director of the Cairo Centre for Human Rights Studies, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the country's strongest opposition movement although it is outlawed. The group operates relatively openly despite regular crackdowns.

Terrorism has been on the decline since a major attack on tourists in the southern city of Luxor in 1997 and Islamist terrorist groups recanting of their extremist ideas in recent years, Hasan said.

"Hence, there is no reason for extending emergency law," he said.

But some political analysts think that the current emergency law is a lesser evil than the anti-terrorism bill, currently under consideration.

"Extending the law is much better than a hastily conceived anti-terror bill. The government has revealed some negative aspects of the bill, which are a cause for concern," Wahid Abd-al-Magid, the director of al-Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies, told dpa. (dpa)