The Egyptian parliament has voted to extend the state of emergency, which restricts constitutional protections and grants police extensive powers, for a further two years.
"The People's Assembly has approved by a 308-member majority the presidential decree to extend the state of emergency for a period of two years," the official MENA news agency reported on Tuesday.
A reported 103 MPs voted against the controversial law, which has been eased by the government for the first time, after 29 years of continuous implementation.
The legal restrictions set out in the law will only apply for suspected cases of terrorism and drug trafficking.
"The emergency law will not be used to undermine freedoms or infringe upon rights if these two threats are not involved," Ahmed Nazif, the Egyptian prime minister, said during his speechto parliament.
Al Jazeera's Amr el-Kahky, reporting from Cairo, said that the changes to the emergency law were "significant indeed".
"The opposition, during telephone calls with me earlier, described it as half a step towards democracy," he said.
"The law has been in place continuously since 1967 apart from 18 months between 1980 and 1981, which means the country has been living under the emergency law for a very, very long time."
The state of emergency has previously been renewed every three years since 1981.
"We are insisting that this law is totally lifted and that the government apologises to the Egyptian people for this."
Demonstrators also protested outside the Egyptian parliament on Tuesday. A number of protesters were injured after a similar rally in downtown Cairo earlier this month.
Opposition parties, including the National Association for Change of former UN atomic energy agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, have demanded an end to the emergency law in the run-up to parliamentary elections this year and a presidential vote in 2011.
The emergency law has been in place continuously since Anwar Sadat, the former Egyptian president, was assassinated in October 1981.
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