CAIRO (Reuters) – Free elections this year could set Egypt on a new democratic course, but the government must also end emergency law and military trials for civilians, the head of Amnesty International said Thursday.

Egyptian elections were marred for decades by thuggery, censored media coverage and ballot stuffing that allowed former president Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) to keep a firm grip on power.
""I don't think Egypt will go back... The elections in the past were a joke,"" Salil Shetty told Reuters in an interview. ""But we are worried that there is extensive use of military trials and that we still have emergency laws and press codes.""
""These are Mubarak laws and we don't need them. If it's a new Egypt, we need to scrap these things.""
The emergency law gives security officials broad powers to arrest and incarcerate civilians.
Amnesty documented brutal police treatment of detainees during the Mubarak era, including electric shocks, suspension by the limbs for hours, sleep deprivation and death threats.
Democracy campaigners say the fate of activist Khaled Said, who witnesses said police officers beat to death outside an Alexandria web cafe in 2010, ignited public indignation and fueled the uprising that ended Mubarak's three-decade rule.
Egypt's military rulers have said they will scrap the emergency law before September parliamentary elections. A presidential election is due before the end of the year.
Shetty said the government had enough power to ensure public security without emergency law and said he feared it could be used in future to distort the democratic process.
""The argument that we get from the government is 'after all it's transitional' and 'after all we don't use emergency laws in any way'. But if you don't use it why do you need it?""