Amnesty International has called on Egypt to stop using emergency courts to detain human rights advocates where “proceedings are inherently unfair.” The watchdog’s comments come as three prominent human rights advocates are due to appear in an emergency court. Alaa Abdelfattah, his lawyer Mohamed Baqer, and the blogger known as Oxygen are due to face charges for allegedly undermining national security following over two years in pretrial detention. They have been denied access to lawyers and regular family visits. Recently, Abdelfattah admitted to his lawyer that he was suicidal, whilst Oxygen tried to commit suicide in August after being denied family visits for months. Amnesty has said that these state security courts violate fair trial standards because defendants are not allowed to … Continue reading Amnesty calls on Egypt to stop trials by emergency courts