Abstract
As Egypt approaches the fourth anniversary of the 2011 uprising that deposed President Hosni Mubarak,
Justice is elusive. In early 2014 more than 1,200 people were sentenced to death in two mass trials denounced by rights groups as contrary to the rule of law. The defendants were accused of launching attacks on police stations and churches in Egypt’s southern province of Minya that resulted in the death of a police officer and a civilian. The unrest had followed the forced dispersal by security forces of two Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins in Cairo that left up to 1,000 supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi dead and thousands more injured. Despite international condemnation, of what human rights groups have described as sham trials, the mass death sentences were upheld for 183 Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including the group’s spiritual leader Mohamed Badie.
Not all those imprisoned since the military takeover are linked to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group designated by Egypt as a terrorist organisation in December 2013. An estimated 9,000 are secular activists or bystanders who have been arrested for being at, or near, protest sites during the violence. Among the jailed activists are several iconic symbols of the 2011 uprising including: Ahmed Maher, the leader and co-founder of the pro-democracy 6 April Youth Movement which helped topple Mubarak; Mohamed Adel; and Ahmed Douma. They were all jailed for demonstrating against a controversial law banning protests without prior permission from the authorities.
A number of other prominent activists have also been arrested or imprisoned for breaching the new protest law, including Alaa Abdel Fattah, the nephew of novelist and political commentator Ahdaf Soueif. He was detained in October, a day after his younger sister Sanaa Seif was sentenced to three years in prison along with 23 others.
Dozens of detainees have gone on hunger strike as a protest against their detentions and what they say are the inhumane conditions under which they are being held. Some detainees claim they have been tortured and abused inside prisons. Others complain of being denied access to justice. Scores have been kept in prison for weeks, and in some cases, months, without charges being brought against them. Many complain they are being denied visits from family or lawyers.
Last January, 26-year-old Egyptian-American activist Mohamed Soltan began a hunger strike in prison to protest against his lengthy detention without charge. No evidence had even been laid against him and Soltan told the judge presiding over his case that his hunger strike was “the only peaceful means left to me to resist injustice and oppression”. He was hospitalised in early November after he went into a coma and was fighting for his life at the time this article went to print.
Riot police during clashes with student supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and ousted President Mohamed Morsi outside the Al Azhar University campus, in Cairo, May 2014
Credit: Amr Dalsh/Reuters
By the end of September this year, a total of 143 people were on hunger strike in the country, according to a report from the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, with dozens of activists outside prison joining the strike to express their solidarity with those detained. In an article for The Guardian newspaper, Egyptian author Ahdaf Soueif described the response of the authorities to the hunger strikes as “bordering on criminal irresponsibility”.
Criticism of the judiciary is a red line in the new Egypt. Those criticising judges or their verdicts risk arrest and prosecution as was demonstrated when prominent liberal intellectual Amr Hamzawy used Twitter to criticise an “unjust verdict” against foreign non-governmental organisations. He faced criminal charges of insulting the judiciary, after a lawyer filed a legal complaint against him. However, not all those in the judiciary are resistant to reform. A judge at a public prosecutor’s office, who wished to remain anonymous, acknowledged the need for change. He told Index: “The problem lies with senior judges who do not understand the concept of human rights. We need to modernise the judicial system and educate judges who fail to comprehend the rapid changes taking place around the world – changes that have come about as a result of new methods of communication, particularly social media.”
The lack of effective justice in Egypt has been highlighted internationally by the case involving three journalists working for the news network Al Jazeera. The evidence incriminating the defendants included private home videos, family vacation photos, a music video and a press conference by a Kenyan official that had nothing to do with the case. The journalists were nevertheless sentenced to between seven and 10 years in prison on charges of aiding a terrorist group and fabricating false news, charges described by Al Jazeera and human rights groups as politically motivated.
The three Al Jazeera journalists are among 125 detained in Egypt since July 2013, according to Reporters without Borders, making Egypt among the top 10 jailers of journalists in the world. No fewer than five journalists reporting on the clashes between protesters and the military/police have been shot and killed by security forces during the past year. In the current atmosphere of fear and intimidation, several journalists have reported verbal harassment and physical assaults by mobs on the streets who accuse them of being pro-Muslim Brotherhood and of fabricating news. Foreign journalists are particularly at risk as xenophobia in Egypt rises, fuelled by a media narrative that depicts foreigners as spies.
The problem lies with senior judges who do not understand the concept of human rights
Journalists are not the only groups at risk. Violence has continued unabated at state universities since the start of the new academic year in October, with near daily clashes between security forces and students protesting the arrests and detention of their colleagues. There have been restrictions placed on activities at universities, including the stationing of police forces on campus and a ban imposed on students’ partisan and religious groups. Tear gas and live ammunition has been used to quell protests, which have sparked fatalities, including that of Omar Sherif, a second-year engineering student at Alexandria University, who died of wounds sustained in clashes with security forces.
In a bid to curb protests, the authorities have issued stern warnings to students that they would adopt a zero-tolerance approach towards dissent, including military trials for students. “Resentment is spreading,” Wesam Atta, a student at Al Azhar University, where some of the worst violence has occurred, told state-sponsored Al Ahram. “The rights to free expression, to organise politically and for universities to be administratively independent, which were gained after the 2011 uprising, are being eaten away.”
Violence is also having a chilling effect on the media. In the wake of two attacks on the Sinai Peninsula on 24 October that killed at least 33 soldiers and wounded dozens more, editors of 17 private and state-owned newspapers and publications pledged to support of the government. In an unprecedented move they vowed to “refrain from criticising state institutions.” In a statement published in the privately owned Al Wafd newspaper, the editors reiterated their “rejection of any attempts to challenge state institutions and insult the military, the police or the judiciary as such insults may negatively affect the performance of these institutions”.
Hundreds of journalists opposed the editors’ declaration. They argued that the move was designed to create “a one-voice media”. In a statement of their own posted on 2 November on social media networks, the journalists said: “Fighting terrorism has nothing to do with the ‘voluntary surrender’ of the freedom of expression as outlined in the editors’ 26 October declaration.”
For the young revolutionaries who mobilised the public for the 2011 mass protests, the rapid about-turn in attitudes towards new found freedoms like that of public assembly and free expression has been devastating. Asmaa Mahfouz, a member of the 6 April Youth Movement now been banned by a Cairo court, told Index: “Losing the gains made by our revolution has caused many of us to despair.” Mahfouz, who recently found out that she was barred by the authorities from leaving the country, added: “Despite the failures, we will not give up. We have made many sacrifices and paid a high price. Our revolution will continue.”
