APAn angered Copt knows whom to blame Mr Mubarak handily swept the vote, and his party held on to its traditionally beefy parliamentary majority in later legislative polls. Since then, however, reforms have failed to appear. Egypt, which seemed to be progressing towards more open politics, is instead sliding backwards.

In December, Ayman Nour, the distant runner-up in the presidential race, with 7% of the vote, was thrown into jail. The outspoken liberal, a diabetic with two young daughters, is serving a five-year sentence, on charges that he forged documents to found his political party. Mr Nour's supporters believe he is being kept out of politics to clear the field for Gamal, Mr Mubarak's 42-year-old son, who, despite protests to the contrary, is seen as a future presidential contender.

The parliamentary runners-up also face trouble. The Muslim Brotherhood captured 88 seats, a record for the opposition in Egypt, and would certainly have gained more without blunt government obstruction of the polling. Still officially illegal, the group continues to be hounded by serial detention of its activists. Recent arrests have included dozens of student leaders, as well as five publishers sympathetic to the Brotherhood, who were rounded up in advance of voting in a publishers' trade organisation.

Oddly enough, the regime has also squashed opposition parties with far less organisational strength or popular appeal than the Brotherhood. Earlier this month, a state-appointed court rejected applications to form political parties filed by mild Islamists and by secular Arab nationalists. Many observers blame government manipulation for the bitter leadership struggle that has crippled the Wafd Party, a traditional voice for liberal secularism. On April 1st, followers of one faction stormed the party headquarters, sparking a shoot-out. Several dozen were injured.

The opposition's weakness has led many reform-minded Egyptians to pin hopes on more narrowly focused pressure groups from outside the formal political system. Several such groups have emerged in recent years, including unions of university teachers protesting against the interference of security agencies in academia, and journalists demanding an end to the imposition of harsh prison terms for libel.

Despite constant coercion from the ministry of justice, Egypt's 9,000 judges are pressing for the adoption of a law establishing full judicial independence. Having stalled on the issue for over a decade, the ministry recently ordered two of the country's most senior judges to appear before a disciplinary board. Although no formal charges have been aired, the pair's apparent crime is to have protested against blatant, government-sponsored fraud during the parliamentary elections, which were ostensibly monitored by the judiciary. Activist judges have vowed to stage protests until their colleagues are exonerated and their independence guaranteed.

Perhaps the most promising of Mr Mubarak's pre-election promises, for ordinary Egyptians, was the one to abolish the emergency laws. Despite government claims that these rules target only terrorists and drug-runners, the right of arbitrary arrest has been exercised far more widely, creating a general public fear of crossing the authorities. But this week Mr Mubarak hinted that the laws will remain in force, because the drafting of less sweeping anti-terrorism legislation could take as long as two years.

Egyptians must remember that they live in an inflamed region, said Mr Mubarak. “We have to appreciate that Egypt, from time to time, is targeted,” he explained, in an apparent suggestion that recent sectarian strife in the port city of Alexandria, where two people were killed, may have resulted from foreign meddling.

Yet, judging from comments on the rioting, by Coptic Christians angered at a knife-wielding Muslim's attack on several churches, a growing number of Egyptians reject blaming such signs of distress on outside forces. Instead, they blame the regime itself, for placing its own security ahead of its citizens', for failing to uphold the rule of law, and for stifling the kind of public debate needed to address such entrenched problems as relations between religion and the state, between sects, and between rulers and those they rule.