Tag: capital punishment

Rights watchdogs denounce Taba bombings trial

Posted on By 3arabawy

Great news to all those concerned with police brutality and justice in Egypt.

The Taba bombings trial–which witnessed harsh sentences of executions and prison terms based on confessions extracted from the suspects under torture–is coming under strong criticism from rights watchdogs inside Egypt and abroad.

Human Rights Watch denounced the trial in a statement:

Serious allegations of torture and forced confessions, as well as prolonged incommunicado detention and lack of consultation with counsel, raise significant doubts about the fairness of the trial, which Human Rights Watch monitored.

More importantly, the African Commission on Human Rights asked the Egyptian government to freeze the execution sentences:

Sentences of death were passed on the three defendants by the Egyptian State Security Emergency Court on 30 November. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and INTERIGHTS, the International Center for the Legal Protection of Human Rights, brought a complaint to the African Commission arguing a number of violations of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, to which Egypt is a signatory. These include torture in detention, failure to meet fair trial standards and the absence of a right of appeal from a sentence of death.
The Commission has not yet ruled on the substance of the case, but has requested the Egyptian authorities to stay execution pending an urgent consideration of the complaint at its next session in the spring, 2007.

I’ve just spoken now with the mother of Osama al-Nakhlawi, one of the defendants sentenced to death. She did not know anything about the African Commission’s statement, so she was EUPHORIC… and is hoping Mubarak will not sign those death sentences. She also complained bitterly about denial of visits to her son for two months now. “I just want to see him,” she told me over the phone. “They will kill him, and I want to see him for the last time before they do that. This is tyranny. This is injustice. May God destroy their (police) homes as they destroyed ours.”

Amen.

Emergency State Security court confirms death sentence for 3 Taba bombings defendants

Posted on By 3arabawy

The Ismailia Emergency State Security court has confirmed today the death sentence handed down to three Taba bombings suspects.

UPDATE: I still don’t have the details of the verdicts, but there were no acquittals. The three defendants’ execution sentences, whose papers were referred to the Mufti last September for approval, were confirmed today. All the rest of the defendants received harsh prison sentences.
Here are photos of today’s trial, by Nasser Nouri.

UPDATE: Here’s a report from Al-Jazeera.

UPDATE: Elijah blogs about the Kangaroo court.

Rights group calls for end to death penalty

Posted on By 3arabawy

From AFP…

An Egyptian human rights organization has called for the abolition of capital punishment, on the fourth annual World Day against the death penalty.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights called for an end to the death penalty in Egypt due to the procedure being a “failed deterrent of crime” and “because of Egypt’s history of unfair trials,” director Hossam Bahgat said. “This year has seen some negative developments for the case against the death penalty here,” said Bahgat.
In June, two Egyptian brothers sentenced to death for leading a drug-trafficking ring were hanged.
“That was an unfair trial. No appeal was allowed and the defendants had claimed that their confessions were extracted by torture,” said Bahgat.
And in September, three suspects in Egypt’s deadly Sinai bombings were sentenced to death.
“Again, there was no appeal in that case,” he said.
Both cases were tried in front of the Emergency state security court that allow defendants no access to lawyers, and no right of appeal to a higher court.
A report issued by the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH), which groups 141 human rights organizations throughout the world, said that Egypt’s terrorism acts, which carry the death penalty, “are broadly and vaguely defined.”
“As a result individuals are judged for loosely defined crimes in tribunals which lack the basic guarantees of a fair trial on charges for which they may pay with their life,” the 2005 report said.
“Because of Egypt’s history of unfair trials, there is no grey in area in wanting to abolish the death penalty. Even supporters of the death penalty should want to see it end here,” Bahgat said.
In Egypt, crimes punishable by death include terrorism related crimes, premeditated murder, rape, and drug related offenses.
There are no reliable figures on the death penalty in Egypt but according to the latest government report, between 25 and 50 executions were carried out each year between 1999 and 2003.
According to Amnesty International, 382 death sentences were recorded between 1996 and 2001. However, the organization believes the actual number to be much higher than those recorded.