Recently, and only until March 23, 2015, some 172 students (male and female) have been referred to military trial. Moreover, a group of Egyptian university students received some 293 years in prison in junta courts that lacked even the most basic essentials of due process.
On Tuesday – March 24, 2015, a judgment confirming the death penalty was issued by a military court against Abdul-Rahman Syed, a high school student, in serious violation of all international conventions signed by Egypt. For one, Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed by Egypt in 1976, states that "every human being on equal footing with others has the right for his/her case to be heard before an independent and impartial tribunal in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him".
Further, court-martialing civilians is a violation of Article 97 of the Egyptian Constitution of 2014, which stipulates that "The right to litigation is sacrosanct and guaranteed to all. Citizens should be tried in front of an ordinary court. Special or exceptional courts are prohibited". Given that article, those students' trials are void ab initio, and they have no basis in any legal context. Their rulings also stand null and void from the very beginning. Furthermore, charges filed against the students are retaliatory in nature and not realistic at all in many cases, according to the minutes of the prosecution.
A Freedom Seekers Monitor (FSM) report details the case of a student that was referred to a military trial. It also details figures that FSM was able to document through its monitoring and documentation unit over past months. This report includes details about male university students and female basic education students referred to military courts.
To see the report (in Arabic), follow this link: http://freedomseekers.org/News-6409
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