Ali Badr, who presented the bill, confirmed in press statements CAIRO: The Egyptian Parliament has approved, in principle, a draft law requiring the dismissal of employees of state agencies without taking disciplinary measures, in order to confront the spread of extremist ideologies. Speaker Ali Abdel-Aal postponed taking a final decision on the bill, in order to present it to the State Council for review. The new law aims to exclude employees and workers who are intellectually affiliated with terrorist organizations from working for state entities, according to the explanatory notes for the new amendments to the law. The first article of the draft stipulates that it will not be permissible to dismiss employees or workers, depending on the circumstances, in any of the state’s administrative apparatus units, unless they violate the duties of the job in a way that would seriously harm production or the economic interests of the state or the bodies stipulated in the article, and if serious evidence had been established tying the employee to violating the security and safety of the state. Ali Badr, who presented the bill, confirmed in press statements that the aim of it was to rid the state’s administrative apparatus of terrorist elements in order to preserve the Egyptian state. Badr stressed that the law was a continuation of a series of laws issued by Parliament to dry up sources of terrorism and deter anyone tempted to break the law. Earlier this year, the Egyptian Minister of Education Tarek Shawki decided to dismiss 1,070 teachers because of affiliations with the Muslim Brotherhood group. “It is a small percentage of 1.5 million teachers, to protect our children,” Shawki said at the time.