Therefore, the Stop the Death Penalty Campaign in Egypt and the undersigned organizations call upon the Egyptian government to immediately halt the implementation of the death penalty and to abide by the Egyptian Code of Criminal Procedure by informing the families of those sentenced to death of the execution deadline and allowing them to visit the convicted person in accordance with what is stipulated in Egyptian law.
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The five groups called on all civil society organizations, political parties, unions, individuals, and Egyptian communities abroad and regional and international bodies to endorse these seven steps as minimum requirements to begin restoring the dignity and rights of all Egyptians.
The Egyptian government carried out death sentences over the previous three days without prior notification to the families of the convicts of the execution date. The families have also not been allowed to see their relatives before the execution, a right enshrined by Article 472 of the Criminal Procedure Law
In the first 2 months of 2021 alone Egyptian authorities executed 7 prisoners.
67 new defendants were sentenced to death
48 new defendants received provisional death penalty sentences.
By the end of October 2020, the justice system in Egypt had carried out the largest number of executions (in different cases of a varying nature) since it began its expansion of the application of death penalty in the last five years. A total of 53 people were executed during the course of October, the last of these executions took place on October 28 when four convicts were executed in a judgement related to the killing of 17 people in a nightclub fire in Agouza.
The second annual report on the death penalty in Egypt, covering the period from January to December 2018.The report reviews and documents death sentences issued in Egypt throughout 2018 and attempts to analyze patterns of handing down death sentences verdicts by Egyptian courts, tracking quantitative and qualitative shifts in the application of the death penalty—the maximum penalty in criminal law and the only irreversible penalty.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the Adalah Center for Rights and Freedoms condemn the sudden decision on Wednesday morning, February, to carry out the death sentence against nine people convicted for the assassination of the public prosecutor in case no. 81/2016/High State Security felonies.
For the fourteenth time in the space of a year, the Court of Cassation has upheld death sentences handed down by lower courts, making them final and enforceable. On Sunday, November 25, 2018, the court issued its judgment on case no.
April 2018 ended as one of the worst months for the issuance of death sentences. Most of these were issued in ordinary criminal cases, not political, and in one case, 45 defendants were sentenced to death, leading observers to wonder if criminal judges in Egypt have any sentencing tools at their disposal but the death penalty.
The EIPR urges the president to use the authority imparted to him by the law to substitute the death sentence with a less severe punishment until the petition to reopen the case is considered. The president has previously commuted a death sentence against Mohammed Hussein on 22 January 2017.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights criticized the parliament for approving a government-submitted bill by a two-thirds majority vote in its general session on Tuesday, March 6. The bill amends provisions of the Penal Code (Law 58/1937) to stiffen penalties on persons convicted of the possession, importation, or manufacture of explosives. According to media sources, the bill introduces the death penalty for one of the crimes set forth.
The report is divided into two chapters: the first includes factual information on some cases in which death sentences were handed out and upheld during 2017; the second identifies patterns of human rights violations which some of the defendants sentenced to the death in praesentia faced in the course of trial proceedings.
The undersigned rights groups condemn the execution of three defendants, before yesterday, in case no. 93/2011/Ismailiya plenary military felonies, following a trial before a military court that did not meet fair trial standards. With this, 22 civilians have now been put to death following military trials in just three weeks, a toll unprecedented in Egypt’s modern history.
At least 19 civilians were executed within the span of a week, pursuant to sentences given by military courts that do not meet the minimum requirements for fair trials; an increasing number of militant attacks on civilians and military personnel were also recorded during this time.
The undersigned groups condemn the execution, today, of 15 people sentenced to death in case no. 411/2013/Ismailiya plenary felonies, known as the “Officer Tracking Cell” case. This is the latest in a series of death sentences handed down without regard for basic guarantees for a fair trial.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) condemns the ruling by the Military Court of Alexandria on Sunday, in case No. 108/ Felonies, known as the “Planting of Explosive Devices" case. The court sentenced 14 defendants to death, 24 to life imprisonment, 15 to 15 years' imprisonment, and acquitted two defendants. EIPR also condemns the assault on the families of the accused after the verdict was issued.
The undersigned organizations reiterate that the continued issuance of death sentences does not guarantee that justice is served.The organizations call for a retrial of the defendants in this case in a process that respects fair trial standards. They also express their concern over the possibility of issuing additional death sentences this month, as verdicts are expected this month in at least five cases in which the defendants’ case files have already been referred to the Grand Mufti; at least two of these cases are before military courts.
Lawyers at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) submitted a petition to the public prosecutor on November 15, 2017 (no. 13274/2017/public prosecutor petitions) seeking an inspection of the death row ward of the al-Abaadiya Prison, after the families of three people detained in the ward, sentenced to death for involvement in the shooting at the Abu al-Matamir police station, complained about the prison administration’s treatment of their family members and what they described as the ‘inhumane’ conditions of their confinement for more than three months.
The signatory organizations warn that the most recent amendments to the criminal procedures code that were ratified on April 27, 2017 will expedite court procedures related to the administration of the death penalty. Before the amendments were made, it was possible for the Court of Cassation to annul a verdict by a criminal court and order a retrial in front of a different court.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) condemns the verdict issued on Monday 7 August in case no. 8473/2013, before Minya Criminal Court, commonly known as the “Storming Matai Police Station” case, in which 12 defendants were sentenced to death and 119 others were sentenced to life in prison, 110 of which are currently in detention, although not all were present in court.
