courts archives — Page 48 of 50

Rights watchdogs denounce Taba bombings trial

Posted on 14/12/200617/01/2021 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.

Taba defendants’ families protest unfair verdicts

Posted on 09/12/200626/12/2020 By 3arabawy

Dozens of family members of the Taba bombings suspects started a sit-in at the Tagammu Party office in Arish Friday, to protest the unfair trial and harsh death and prison sentences.

Essam and Mursi released, but face threat of house arrest

Posted on 09/12/200602/02/2021 By 3arabawy

Dr. Essam el-Erian and Dr. Muhammad Mursi have been finally released today from prison, but they were put under house arrest by the State Security Prosecutor.

I spoke with Dr. Essam an hour ago, to tell him “Kaffara ya doctor.” He said he will be standing in court tomorrow 10am at the Tagamou’ el-Khames Court, where he’ll contest in front of a judge the house detention order.

UPDATE: The court lifted the house arrest:

Two top Muslim Brotherhood leaders freed in Egypt
By Cynthia Johnston
CAIRO, Dec 10 (Reuters) – A Cairo court on Sunday set free two leading members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood detained since anti-government protests in May, overruling a move by prosecutors to keep them under house arrest.
Essam el-Erian and Muhammad Mursi were the two most senior Brotherhood officials in detention. Erian is the head of the group’s political department and Mursi is a leading Brotherhood politician.
Judicial sources and the Brotherhood said the men were released from prison late on Saturday following a decision by prosecutors, but they were to be kept under house arrest.
On Sunday, the Brotherhood challenged the house arrest and a court ordered it to be lifted. Mursi, speaking to Reuters shortly after the court ruling, said the decision to cancel the house arrest was “an achievement for the Egyptian judiciary”.
“This decision (to release us) should have been taken months ago,” he said. “The case that we were subject to contained no serious accusations. It was a political case of the first degree.”
Although officially banned, the Muslim Brotherhood is Egypt’s strongest opposition movement. Members elected as independents hold about one-fifth of seats in parliament, which is dominated by President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party.
Erian and Mursi had been held since they were arrested in May during protests in support of Egyptian judges demanding greater independence from the executive.
Political analysts said the move by prosecutors to impose house arrest appeared to be an unsuccessful attempt to find a loophole in Egyptian law that would help authorities to maintain restrictions on detainees even after their release.
While prosecutors may renew detentions every 15 days, they cannot generally do so indefinitely and detainees must eventually either be put on trial or set free.
Indefinite detention is generally reserved for detainees viewed as security threats.
“I think they were giving it a good try to establish this precedent of house arrest,” said Muhammad el-Sayed Said, deputy director of Egypt’s Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
“I have never heard of this practice before of the government putting someone under house arrest … Fortunately it wasn’t (successful). It is an obvious infringement of fundamental human rights.”