International call to stop political executions in Egypt

The International Commission of Jurists has called for immediate action to stop politically motivated executions in Egypt, considering them invalid because of the lack of fair trials.

In a statement published on 29 June, the commission said: “We specifically ask the international community to call for an immediate end to executions in the country, particularly the imminent executions of 12 men sentenced in a politically motivated mass trial.”

On 14 June, Egypt’s court of appeal upheld the death penalty for 12 members of the Muslim Brotherhood convicted in the Rabaa sit-in case following the overthrow of the country’s first democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi.

“The 12 men now facing imminent execution were sentenced to death in a mass trial of 739 defendants. We understand that no individualized evidence was presented at any point and the defense was not given the opportunity to defend individual clients,” the statement continued. “The 12 men now at risk of imminent execution.”

“These sentences are the latest development in Egypt’s escalating death penalty crisis, detailed in recent reports from a number of civil society organisations, including Reprieve and Amnesty International,” it added.

Signatories, including Reprieve, Democracy in the Arab World Now (DAWN) and Human Rights Watch (HRW), added: “International intervention can be life-saving.”

Urging the international community to “call on the Egyptian authorities to immediately end the use of mass trials, which violate the fair trial and due process guarantees enshrined in Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

READ: Egypt continues execution spree, with impunity