Al-Monitor -- The deadly bombings claimed by the Islamic State group hit 3 Egyptian churches, including the Mar Girgis Coptic Orthodox Church in the Nile Delta City of Tanta where worshippers were attending Palm Sunday mass.
Egypt has executed 8 men sentenced to death over deadly attacks claimed by the Islamic State group on churches and a police checkpoint, judicial and medical sources said Tuesday.
The convicts, whose final appeal against the death penalty was denied in May last year, were put to death at dawn on Monday, the sources said.
They were among 17 defendants who were sentenced to death by a military court in October 2018 for their roles in the attacks on churches in Alexandria, Cairo and Tanta and a police checkpoint in southwestern Egypt, a judicial source told AFP.
The other 9 were tried in absentia and remain at large.
The 4 attacks in 2016 and 2017, mostly targeting Christians, killed a total of 88 people.
The Coptic Christian minority makes up between 10 and 15 % of Egypt's 100 million population and has been particularly targeted by IS.
Executions have risen sharply since President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took power in 2014 after leading the army's overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
Human rights group Amnesty International, which opposes the death penalty, said the severity of the convicts' alleged offences was no justification for their group execution.
"A mass execution is no way to deliver justice. These men were executed following an unfair military trial," it said.
"Everyone is entitled to a fair trial, regardless of the charges that they are facing."
8 executed in 1 day
Middle East Monitor -- 8 men were executed yesterday in Egypt in what is thought to be the first death sentences carried out in the country so far in 2020.
The defendants were among 17 men who had been sentenced to death in a military court in May 2019 and accused of attacking three Coptic churches and a police checkpoint that killed 88 people in 2017. The executions were carried out at Borg El-Arab prison in Alexandria.
Several of the defendants told prosecutors that they were subject to enforced disappearance after their arrest, according to an Egyptian rights organisation and reported by Amnesty International.
The rights organisation We Record has said the defendants were subject to systematic torture to obtain false confessions.
We Record published the names of the defendants: Rami Ghani, Walid Abdul Aziz, Mohamed Metwally, Salama Qasim, Ali Shehata, Ali Hassan, Abdul Hussain and Rifai Mohamed.
Since President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s rise to power in 2013 there have been an unprecedented number of death sentences in Egypt.
Between January 2014 and February 2018 courts recommended the death sentence for at least 2,159 individuals and carried out 83 of them, according to the London based anti-death penalty charity, Reprieve. Between 2011 and 2013, 1 person was executed.
10 children have also been sentenced to death under Al-Sisi’s rule.
Soaring numbers of executions has come after the increase in mass trials in which multiple defendants are sentenced to death at the same time.
Death sentences after a mass trial are illegal under international law.
In March 2014 a court in Minya recommended the death penalty for 529 defendants at the same time.
At the beginning of February this year an Egyptian court referred the papers of former special forces officer turned militant Hisham Al-Ashmawy, and 36 others, to the Grand Mufti to approve their execution after they were sentenced in a mass trial of over 200 people.
Egypt: 8 men put to death in mass execution
Amnesty International has received confirmation that the Egyptian authorities executed 8 men in the early hours of this morning in Borg el-Arab prison in Alexandria. The men were among 17 defendants who were sentenced to death by a military court in October 2018, in relation to deadly attacks on three churches and a police checkpoint that killed 88 individuals.
“The attacks on Coptic Christian churches and a police checkpoint in 2017 were appalling, and the perpetrators should be held to account for their crimes. But a mass execution is no way to deliver justice. These men were executed following an unfair military trial and amid allegations that they were subjected to enforced disappearances and torture. Everyone is entitled to a fair trial, regardless of the charges that they are facing,” said Phil Luther, Amnesty International’s MENA Research Director.
“The attacks in 2017 were appalling and the perpetrators should be held to account for their crimes. But a mass execution is no way to deliver justice ”
“Since 2013, death sentences have soared in Egypt, with the authorities often putting people to death in grossly unfair trials marred by torture allegations. We call on Egypt to halt this alarming trend. The other defendants accused of involvement in these horrific crimes must be retried in a civilian court in proceedings that comply with international human rights law and fair trial standards.”
“ We call on Egypt to halt this alarming trend ”----Phil Luther, Amnesty International
According to a joint report issued by the Egyptian Front for Human Rights and Committee for Justice, several defendants in the case told prosecutors that they were subjected to enforced disappearance and torture, based on the casefile of the case.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or the method used by the state to kill the prisoner. The death penalty is a violation of the right to life; it is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
Background
Military trials are inherently unfair because all personnel in military courts, from judges to prosecutors, are serving members of the military who report to the Minister of Defence and do not have the necessary training on rule of law or fair trial standards.
Source: al-monitor.com, Middle East Monitor, Amnesty International, Staff, February 25, 2020
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
