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Warnings of catastrophic consequences after Egypt's latest death sentences

May 18, 2015 at 12:45 pm

Egyptian and foreign activists and politicians have warned of dire consequences to the court ruling on Saturday sentencing President Mohammad Morsi and a number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders to death in the case of “communication with Hamas” and the case of “fleeing from prison” on the eve of the January 2011 Revolution.

Kuwaiti preacher Tariq Suwaidan has said that the execution of Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders will pull Egypt down the path of a civil war.

Writing on Facebook, Suwaidan said: “We endeavour to restrain the youth and maintain peacefulness. Yet, they (the authorities) are intent on driving them toward violence and civil war by means of sentencing to death President Morsi, Scholar Al-Qaradawi, Al-Shatir, Al-Beltagy and hundreds of their brothers and leaders. Where are the wise people within as well as outside Egypt? Why don’t they do something to prevent Egypt from being pulled down into this disaster?”

A serious threat to civic peace

Commenting on the sentencing to death of Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders, the 6 April Youth Movement has said that “the corrupt judiciary, which is contemptuous of the January Revolution for having called for purging it, only drives society toward vengeance and hatred having agreed to perform the role of a cane in the hand of the oppressive dictatorial regime.

The movement’s statement on its Facebook page added: “the latest death sentences represent a serious escalation that threatens civic peace and leads to chaos as a result of society’s loss of confidence in the system of justice.” The movement called on the Egyptian people “not to slide down the route of vengeful retaliation that threatens societal peace and to stand in the face of all forms of injustice and violence.”

A court has sentenced 122 persons to death including President Morsi, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohammad Badei, his deputy Khayrat Al-Shatir, former Parliament Speaker Saad Al-Katatni and a number of other Muslim Brotherhood leaders such as Issam Al-Iryan and Muhammad Al-Beltagy in addition to Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, Chairman of the International Federation of Muslim Scholars, and several members of Hamas and Hezbollah. On the 2nd of June the court is supposed to convene again in order to give a final verdict having referred the sentences for consultation with the grand Mufti.

The British Guardian newspaper reported the warnings made by Islamists in Egypt against the dire repercussions of sentencing to death the first elected president in the history of the country.

In a report published on Saturday under the title of “Islamists warn against the repercussions of executing Morsi” that “in case the death sentence against Morsi is finally confirmed on the 2nd of June, analysts believe that the country will witness a violence backlash that may force the regime to repeal the death sentence, especially in view of the fact that Morsi had previously been sentenced to a long term of imprisonment in another case, very much nearing a life sentence.”

Israel’s Second TV Channel has said it expects the death sentences to cause a new and massive wave of violence in Egypt that is “led this time by the supporters of President Morsi”.

The channel added in one of its reports: “Nearly two years following the coup exacted by army leader Abd Al-Fattah Al-Sisi against President Morsi and the launch of an extensive operation by the army against the Muslim Brotherhood, as a result of which hundreds have been killed and several thousands detained, the Egyptians are fearful that the recent death sentence against Morsi might ignite a new wave of violence protests in an unprecedented manner.”

Inciting the taking up of arms

While hundreds of young members of the Muslim Brotherhood struggle to self restrain and hold back their reactions while seeing their own friends and relatives languish behind bars in military jails and receive harsh death and life prison sentences, these young men are coming under enormous pressure from their peers inside armed groups such as ISIS and others who urge them to resort to arms.

The members of such armed groups boast about their action of avenging the killing or persecution of their own colleagues without delay. They also take pride in killing soldiers and policemen thanks to the arms in their hands that enable them to fight against the oppressors. At the same time they ridicule the members of the Muslim Brotherhood who stand receiving bullets in their bare chests while being content with reciting prayers and asking Allah to deliver them from the injustice imposed on them.

Members of the Sinai branch of ISIS have been reported as pouring scorn on the members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the aftermath of the court’s decision to sentence Muhammad Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders to death by publishing two pictures next to each other one of them features the leaders of the Brotherhood standing behind bars while the other features elements of the Sinai branch of ISIS standing over the body of an army soldier they had just killed. The combined pictures bore a caption saying: “The might of Jihad versus the subservience of peacefulness .. you choose”.

The twitter account of Dabiq Channel, which speaks for the ISIS organisation said: “While members of the Muslim Brotherhood are weeping over the injustices exacted upon them by the judiciary in the form of mass death sentences, you will find the men of the Sinai Branch of ISIS slaughtering Sisi judges (alluding to the slaying of three judges at Al-Arish). That’s the difference between subservience and might.”