GENEVA – The Geneva Council for Rights and Liberties (GCRL) condemns the acceleration of the execution of death sentences in Egypt against dozens of citizens, opponents, and politicians, after politicized trials that lack justice.
According to the Council’s follow-up, the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior, on Monday, April 26, 2021, executed the death sentence against 17 detainees connected with Case No. 12749 of 2013, Giza Felonies, known as “the Kerdasa Police Station storming”
Egyptian human rights sources confirmed that the relatives of some of those executed against them were informed of the death sentence, in preparation for receiving their bodies, including (Abd al-Rahim Jibril, Abdullah Abd al-Qawi, Ahmed al-Ayyat, Ahmed Ewais Hammouda, Mustafa al-Qarfash, Walid Saad Abu Amira). The data reviewed by the Geneva Council indicated that one of the executed persons is an 81-year-old man, Sheikh Abd al-Rahim Jibril, who is one of the societal symbols of the Kerdasa region in the Giza governorate.
He was arrested from his home, where he was not a fugitive, and at that time the security forces destroyed all the contents of his house, and the Egyptian prosecutor investigated the security forces camp in violation of the law and fair trial standards were not provided to him and the rest of the detainees and those sentenced in the same case.
This brings the number of death sentences carried out by the Egyptian authorities since the beginning of the year to 54. In last March, 30 defendants were executed in at least 14 criminal cases, and in February, the death penalty was carried out against 6 accused in 4 criminal cases, and in January the death penalty was carried out against one person accused in a criminal case.
During this period and according to what human rights sources documented from Egypt, 92 people were sentenced to death in 55 cases, including two in one case, which is related to the killing of a police secretary in Beni Suef Governorate, in addition to 90 people who were sentenced to death in 54 criminal cases. And in January, Egyptian courts have sentenced to death 45 people in 22 cases, 43 of them in 21 criminal cases, and two in a case of political violence, but in February, death sentences were issued against 27 people in 16 criminal cases, and 20 people were sentenced to death in 17 cases. Criminal case in March.
The year 2020 witnessed the implementation of at least 107 death sentences by the Egyptian authorities, which represented a more than three-fold increase from the 32 sentences executed in 2019, and these data confirm the Egyptian authorities’ insistence on expanding the issuance and execution of death sentences, some of which are in collective cases. Of a political nature or related to political violence,The charges are frequently fabricated against political opponents, leading to unfair trials leading to their execution.
The Council notes that the majority of trials in which death sentences are issued lack fair trial standards, and come after subjecting detainees to harsh torture, extracting coerced confessions, and degrading treatment. The Council calls for action by the international community to pressure Egypt to stop the gross violations of human rights, And lifting the cover that encourages the Egyptian state to commit violations without regard or respect for international human rights standards. It also calls for serious action to abolish all death sentences issued and re-trials in accordance with recognized standards to ensure fair trials, and to introduce new legislation that reconsider the death penalty.
