GENEVA – Geneva Council for Rights and Liberties ( GCRL) condemns the execution of 16 detainees by Egyptian security authorities, within 24 hours, following an unjust, politicized trial marred by suspected political retaliation.
These executions, ahead of World Day Against the Death Penalty which is observed annually on October 10, reflect the insistence of the authorities in Egypt to violate international human rights standards.
According to the Geneva Council, on Saturday, October 3,2020, Egyptian authorities carried out the largest number of death sentences against 16 detainees in one day within 7 years from different places in the country. Early Saturday morning, the authorities announced the execution of the detainees Yasser Al-Abasiri and Yasser Shukr from Alexandria Governorate. However, many sources confirmed that the number of people who were executed reached 15 and were transferred to Cairo’s Zeinhom morgue.
We Record, a London-based NGO, authorities executed 16 political prisoners two of them in the case known in the media as the events of the Library of Alexandria, and the rest in the case known in the media as “Soldiers of Egypt 1”.
The names of the executed political detainees are Bilal Sobhy Farahat, Yasser Mohammad Ahmed Khudair, Abdullah Al-Sayed, Mohammad Al-Sayed, Gamal Zaki Abdel-Rahim, Islam Shaaban Shehata, Mohammad Ahmed Tawfiq, Saad Abdel Raouf Saad, Mohammad Saber Ramadan Nasr, Mahmoud Saber Ramadan Nasr, Samir Ibrahim Saad Mustafa, Taj Al-Din Mohammad Hamida and Mohammad Hassan Izz al-Din Muhammad Hassan, Mohammad Adel Abdul Hamid.
Three other detainees were also executed in Case No. 12749 of 2013, Giza Felonies. It is the case known in the media as “Kerdasa Police Station,” and they are Shahat Mustafa Muhammad Ali al-Ghazlani Ammar, Saeed Yusef Abd al-Salam Salih Ammar, and Ahmed Muhammad Muhammad al-Shahid.
Since the beginning of 2020, the Egyptian authorities have issued dozens of new death sentences, referred other sentences to the mufti, and actually carried out dozens of death sentences as well. According to Amnesty International’s annual report for 2019, Egypt ranks high among countries that have resorted to the death penalty in that year, following Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.
While it strongly condemns the implementation of these sentences which fall short of the global trend towards abolition of the death penalty, GCRL indicates that the refusal in this specific case is linked to the absence of the international minimum standards of a fair trial.
Geneva Council notes that the nature of the judicial bodies, the laws they rely on in issuing judgments, the conditions of the illegal detention, as well as the systematic practice of torture detainees are being subjected to that leads them to make false confessions, reveal the unjust, politicized trials rife with retaliation. The Council calls on the international community to shoulder its responsibilities regarding the escalation of flagrant human rights violations in Egypt and to take deterrent measures to ensure accountability and redress.
