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 |  Subject: Egyptian Court Sentences More Than 500 Muslim brotherhood Supporters To Die deaths would cause a new civil war  Tue Mar 25, 2014 7:21 am | |
| Egyptian Court Sentences More Than 500 Muslim brotherhood Supporters To Die deaths would cause a new civil waron March 25, 2014Posted In: Islamic Militancy Egyptian supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood are seen during their trial in the killing of a police officer last year.Mohammed Bendari/APA Images/LandovAn Egyptian court has sentenced to death hundreds of supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi after a mass trial on charges related to an attack that killed a policeman.The verdicts and sentencing came of the 529 people came after just two sessions of the court, sparking criticism from human rights activists.Egypt’s state-run newspaper Al Ahram said the defendants were convicted of killing a single police officer, and of attempted murder of two others. They were also found guilty of rioting that destroyed the police station that those officers worked in. The paper said 16 other defendants were acquitted.CAIRO: In the worst aftermath to the Arab Spring in Egypt possible, several hundred supporters of the political party that won government in 2012, are to be executed.The state-linked Ahram Online news service described it as the largest set of death sentences ordered by a court in the modern history of Egypt.All members of the Muslim Brotherhood, those convicted and sentenced were taking part in protests, which the government called riots, in Minya in the southern part of Egypt.The Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist religious, political, and social organization,was successful in the 2011-2012 parliamentary elections, and its leader, Mohamed Morsi, won the June 2012 presidential election.Fast-forward a year and the Egyptian army had ousted the elected government and put Morsi and many of his supporters in jail. It had also declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.On Monday the Minya Criminal Court sentenced 529 supporters of the organization to death for their part in the Minya riots, the country’s official news agency said.The protests/riots occurred when two large sit-ins in Cairo, that were supporting the ousted president, resulted in a violent crackdown by Egyptian security forces.Amnesty International described the mass sentences as, “a grotesque example of the shortcomings and the selective nature of Egypt’s justice system.”The trial which resulted in Monday’s sentencing, only began on Saturday. The defense team was reportedly not allowed to make statements or objections, and the majority of the defendants were not allowed to attend the hearing. “When the trial starts on Saturday and it is just a procedural hearing, and the judge doesn’t listen to any lawyers or witnesses and doesn’t even call the defendants, you are before a group of thugs and not the judiciary,” a family member of a defendant told Reuters.“This is the largest single batch of simultaneous death sentences we’ve seen in recent years, not just in Egypt but anywhere in the world,” Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International said Monday“Egypt’s courts are quick to punish Mohamed Morsi’s supporters but ignore gross human rights violations by the security forces. While thousands of Morsi’s supporters languish in jail, there has not been an adequate investigation into the deaths of hundreds of protesters. Just one police officer is facing a prison sentence, for the deaths of 37 detainees.”“Without an independent and impartial process that can deliver truth and justice for all, many will question whether Egypt’s criminal justice system has indeed anything to do with justice,” Sahraoui said. “In any event, recourse to the death penalty is inherently unjust, and the Egyptian authorities should impose a moratorium on executions, with a view to abolishing it.”- See more at:http://www.malaysiasun.com/index.php/sid/220575890/scat/b8de8e630faf3631/ht/More-than-500-Muslim-Brotherhood-supporters-to-be-executed-by-Egypt#sthash.XfJOjN0B.dpufThe BBC reports that the group is among some 1,200 Muslim Brotherhood supporters on trial, including senior members.The news agency says: - Quote :
- “The speed of the case, and the severity of the outcome, are unprecedented in Egypt, according to legal sources.
“In a case centred on the killing of a single police officer, more than 520 defendants have been sentenced to death, at a breathtaking pace.
“The first hearing — on Saturday — was quickly adjourned. At Monday’s second session, the mass death sentences were announced.
“A spokesman for the banned Muslim Brotherhood said the verdict came from a ‘Kangaroo court.’ One human rights campaigner said judges had become a tool for taking revenge.” The New York Times quotes legal experts who are calling the case “the largest mass trial or conviction in the history of modern Egypt. It also was a surprising acceleration of the nine-month-old crackdown on Mr. Morsi’s Islamist supporters and liberal dissenters that has followed his removal last July.” The Associated Press reports: - Quote :
- “The verdicts are subject to appeal and would likely be overturned, rights lawyers said. But they said the swiftness and harshness of the rulings on such a large scale deepened concerns that Egypt’s courts have been politicized and that due process is being swept away amid a monthslong crackdown on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood supporters since the military removed the president last summer.”
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