His presidency was marked by a continuation of the policies pursued by his predecessor, including the liberalization of Egypt's economy and a commitment to the 1979 Camp David Accords.

Concerns raised include political censorship, police brutality, arbitrary detention, torture, and restrictions on freedoms of speech, association, and assembly.

This is in large part due to Egypt's political structure, in which the President must approve all pieces of legislation and state expenditures before they are enacted.

He had previously served as Vice President since 1975, a position he gained after rising through the ranks of the Egyptian Air Force during the preceding two decades.

Prior to 2005, opposition candidates were not permitted to run for President, with the position instead being reaffirmed via referendum in the People's Assembly at regular six-year intervals.

[3][4][5] Shortly after mounting an unprecedented presidential campaign, Nour was jailed on forgery charges critics called phony; he was released on 18 February 2009.

A dramatic drop in support for Mubarak and his domestic economic reform program increased with surfacing news about his son Alaa being favored in government tenders and privatization.

Gamal Mubarak branched out with a few colleagues to set up Medinvest Associates Ltd., which manages a private equity fund, and to do some corporate finance consultancy work.

[8] Mubarak maintained Egypt's commitment to the Camp David peace process, while restoring relations with other Arab states.

[10] Egypt was a member of the allied coalition in the 1991 Gulf War, and Egyptian infantry were some of the first to land in Saudi Arabia to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

Egypt's involvement in the coalition was deemed by the George H. W. Bush administration as crucial in garnering wider Arab support for the liberation of Kuwait.

In fact, luck was on Hosni Mubarak's side; when the US was hunting for a military alliance to force Iraq out of Kuwait, Egypt's president joined without hesitation.

[17] The Israeli historian Major Efraim Karsh wrote in 2006 that in Egypt's "...numberless articles, scholarly writings, books, cartoons, public statements, and radio and television programs, Jews are painted in the blackest terms imaginable".

population 1,000,000) for six-weeks arresting and removing some 5000 people, after al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya followers of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman attempted to take control there.

"[22] A state of emergency remained in force throughout the entirety of Mubarak's presidency and provided a basis for arbitrary detention and unfair trials.

[24] In 2007, Amnesty International reported that the Egyptian police routinely engaged in "beatings, electric shocks, prolonged suspension by the wrists and ankles in contorted positions, death threats and sexual abuse".

[27] Freedom House upgraded Egypt's Press Freedom status in 2008 from "Not Free" to "Partly Free" in recognition not of a liberalization of government policy, but "of the courage of Egyptian journalists to cross "red lines" that previously restricted their work and in recognition of the greater range of viewpoints represented in the Egyptian media and blogosphere.

In the last two decades of Mubarak's reign, inflation was lowered and from 1981 to 2006, GDP per capita based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) increased fourfold (from US$1355 in 1981 to an estimated US$4535 in 2006, and US$6180 in 2010).

Monetary restructuring, especially the flotation of the Egyptian pound, the liberalization of the country's money markets, a reform of the tax system and strategic reductions in governmental social spending, resulted in "staggering hardships for the majority of the people" according to at least one observer.[who?]

[24] As of 1989, early in the Mubarak era, Egypt continued to have a skewed distribution of wealth; about 2,000 families had annual incomes in excess of E£35,000, while more than 4 million people earned less than E£200.

According to the World Bank: infant mortality and malnutrition among children under five both decreased by half and life expectancy rose from 64 to 71 years.

"[37] While in office, political corruption in the Mubarak administration's Ministry of Interior rose dramatically, due to the increased power over the institutional system that is necessary to secure the prolonged presidency.

[41] On a personnel level,[clarification needed] each individual officer is allowed to violate citizens' privacy in his area using unconditioned arrests due to the emergency law.

[46][47] On 13 April, a prosecutor ordered Mubarak and both his sons to be detained for 15 days of questioning about allegations of corruption and abuse of power.