(HRW/IFEX) – The following is a Human Rights Watch press release: Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Detainees Face Military Tribunals (Cairo, February 15, 2007) – Egypt should release the hundreds of members of the Muslim Brotherhood detained solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch has […]
(HRW/IFEX) – The following is a Human Rights Watch press release:
Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Detainees Face Military Tribunals
(Cairo, February 15, 2007) – Egypt should release the hundreds of members of the Muslim Brotherhood detained solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch has collected the names of 226 members of the banned, nonviolent organization, Egypt’s largest opposition group, currently held by Egyptian authorities.
Security forces originally arrested Khairat al-Shatir, deputy supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, and 16 other prominent members of the organization in simultaneous predawn raids on December 14, along with more than 140 students from Al-Azhar University, and later charged them with supplying the students with combat training, knives, and chains. On January 29, a Cairo criminal court judge dismissed all charges against al-Shatir and his co-defendants and ordered their immediate release. The judge in his ruling specifically called on the government to respect his decision. The government ignored the judge’s order. Moments after their acquittal, al-Shatir and 15 other senior members were re-arrested by the police. On February 6, President Hosni Mubarak, acting in his capacity as commander of the military, transferred their cases and those of 24 other Muslim Brotherhood members to a military tribunal.
“Re-arresting these men moments after their acquittal shows a complete contempt for the rule of law and shocking disrespect for the court,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “This escalation in the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood has worrying implications for anyone who peacefully campaigns for change.”
Egypt’s Emergency Law, in place without interruption since 1981, authorizes the president to refer civilians to military trials. In 1995, in advance of parliamentary elections in that year, the government arrested many senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood and referred their cases to military court, which convicted them of nonviolent offenses and sentenced them to prison terms of up to five years.
As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Egypt must ensure that persons charged with criminal offenses have the right to a fair trial. Article 14 of the ICCPR requires “a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law,” and the right to review of any conviction and sentence by a higher tribunal. The Human Rights Committee – the body authorized to monitor compliance with the ICCPR, which Egypt ratified in 1982 – has stated that the trial of civilians by military courts should be very exceptional and occur only under conditions that genuinely afford full due process. In Egypt, military courts’ judgments are final and cannot be appealed to a higher court or tribunal, denying defendants full due-process rights.
“Al-Shatir and the other Muslim Brotherhood members should never have been arrested in the first place,” Whitson said. “Now that an independent court has said as much, the government is resorting to a military tribunal to deliver the desired verdict.”
This most recent crackdown began last spring, when the Muslim Brotherhood lent its support to judges campaigning for judicial independence and clean elections. Over subsequent months, security forces detained at least 792 members of the organization, many of them without charge. The crackdown accelerated after students affiliated with the organization on December 10 protested the conduct of student union elections at Al-Azhar University wearing black hoods. Though the students later apologized for the demonstration and leaders stressed that the group has no militia and is committed to peaceful change, hundreds of members have since been arrested. On January 28, public prosecutor ‘Abd al-Magid Mahmud ordered al-Shatir’s assets, and those of 28 other members of the Muslim Brotherhood, frozen on the grounds that they financed a banned organization.
The acceleration in arrests coincides with an escalation in the political confrontation between the Muslim Brotherhood and the government. In an interview released January 11, President Mubarak called the Muslim Brotherhood “a threat to national security.” Soon after, the group’s supreme guide, Mahdi ‘Akef, said that the group would apply for the first time to register as a legal political party in response to proposed constitutional amendments that would exclude Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated candidates from future elections, including elections for the upper house of Parliament this spring. On January 26, Interior Minister Habib al-‘Adli, responding on state television to a journalist’s erroneous assertion that the Muslim Brotherhood claims 3,000 of its members are in prison, rejected the claim, but suggested that the government should “complete that number,” apparently by arresting hundreds more.
“By trying to crush Egypt’s largest opposition movement, the government has shown once again that it cannot tolerate any criticism,” said Whitson. “All political parties and groupings in Egypt, including the Muslim Brotherhood, should be able to peacefully express their views, even when criticizing the government.”
For broadcast-quality audio commentary on the Muslim Brotherhood and human rights conditions in Egypt over the last year, please visit:
– In English: http://hrw.org/audio/2007/wr2k7/english/mena/egypt.mp3
– In Arabic: http://hrw.org/audio/2007/wr2k7/arabic/egypt.mp3
