Tag: capital punishment

Halt execution of accused Taba bombers, says HRW

Posted on By 3arabawy

HRW joins the calls to halt the execution of three of the alleged Taba bombers, who were tried in one of Hosni’s kangaroo courts last year:

Egypt should not execute three men sentenced to death by a State Security Court for the 2004 bombings in Taba, Human Rights Watch said today. In a letter to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Human Rights Watch said that because of serious trial irregularities, including allegations of torture, coerced confessions, and prolonged incommunicado detention, the accused should be tried again before a court whose proceedings comply with international fair trial standards.
“If the government thinks these men are to blame for the outrages in Taba, it should prosecute them in a fair trial,” said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division. “Executing these men after such deeply flawed trials would be a travesty of justice.”
On November 30, 2006 a State Security Emergency Court in Isma`iliyya sentenced Yunis Muhammad Mahmud `Alyan, Usama Muhammad `Abd al-Ghani al-Nakhlawi, and Muhammad Jayiz Sabbah Hussein to death after convicting them in connection with the October 7, 2004 bombings in and around the resort city of Taba. This court, established under Egypt’s Emergency Law, does not provide the right of appeal. Only the President of the Republic can order a retrial or alter the sentences. Human Rights Watch said it had information that legal advisers in Mubarak’s office recently recommended that he ratify the death sentences against these men.

Mubarak’s Military Courts: 94 sentenced to death, 701 jailed in 8 years

Posted on By 3arabawy

From Ikhwan Web:

94 persons were sentenced to death and 701 others were given prison sentences out of 1136 defendants in 36 cases that appeared before the military justice between 1992 and 2000, said a human rights study.
The series of transferring civilians to military tribunals started in 1992 when president Mubarak, as a military governor, referred 48 defendants in the two cases of “Returnees from Afghanistan” and “Jihad Organization” to the Supreme Military Tribunal in Alexandria in late October 1992.

Sinai 3 on hunger strike

Posted on By 3arabawy

The three Sinai defendants sentenced to death by a kangaroo court last November are currently on a hunger strike protesting the verdicts and their prison conditions, according to their families. I could not confirm the exact date for the start of the strike, as the prisoners’ families were only allowed few minute visits, but it seems the strike have started roughly a week or ten days ago.

After banning visits since September, the families of Younis Abu Garir, Osama al-Nakhlawi and Mohammed Jaez Sabbah can only see their sons now once a month, as they wait on death row. Last Thursday, the families stood outside prison from 8am till 2:30pm before they were allowed to see their sons for few minutes. The prison guards forced the families to taste every single dish of food they brought to the prisoners, and refused to let them give the prisoners extra blankets they badly need in their freezing cells.

The three are incarcerated in Liman Tora Prison, in separate cells with criminals. One of the demands the hunger strikers is to be transferred back to Istiqbal Tora, with the rest of the political detainees.