• EGYPT
  • September 8, 2015
  • 4 minutes read

Rights Group Condemns Death Sentences Against Clearly Innocent Anti-Coup Mansoura Youths

Rights Group Condemns Death Sentences Against Clearly Innocent Anti-Coup Mansoura Youths
The #StopEgyEx (Stop Egypt Executions) rights campaign condemns a junta court’s decision Monday to confirm death sentences against nine young-men from Dakahlia (north east of Cairo) in case No. 781 of 2014 South Mansoura Supreme State Security.

These sentences are unjust and the whole process lacked all fair trial standards and failed to achieve justice or apply the law. Like all previous "death penalty" cases in Egypt in recent months, the accused are allowed no defense or testimony. They are not even allowed to explain how they were tortured and how they suffered extreme and brutal abuse and unspeakable violations by their interrogators.

According to accounts of the defendants’ families, all those have been subjected to enforced disappearance for several days during which they suffered the most extreme forms of torture, until the interior ministry extracted ‘confessions’ from some of them in videos posted on the ministry’s webpage, and in which they confess crimes they never committed, like killing a Dakahlia Directorate of Security sergeant.

Absurdly, the court deliberately ignored all exculpatory evidence that clearly exonerates the defendants. For example, Ahmed Waleed, the main defendant in the case, could not possibly have aimed a gun at any-one due to a surgical operation he had in his head. Moreover, the victim was killed standing, as stated in the report of the forensic doctor, which is contrary to statements in the police record which claim Waleed was a passenger in a vehicle at the time. Also, the weapons that appeared in front of the defendants in video evidence later disappeared completely, with only an old sewage pipe and an ancient gun shown in court, the gun had never been used before and had no bullets in it. All these and many other absurd facts confirm the case was fabricated and the verdict unjust against those innocent young men.

We urge for social pressure to revive the law and justice in Egypt, and to stop the practice of systematic killings disguised in legal procedures and death sentence.

It is not acceptable that we stand by and witness as more innocent young people are executed unjustly, just as before. This blood will remain a curse on all those who abuse the legal system or ignore principles of law and justice in this country.

Stop Egypt Execution Campaign

Monday – September 7, 201