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In mid-June, human rights organizations reported that 209 death sentences had been handed down in Egypt since January of this year. Later that month, an article in Egypt’s Al Dustour daily newspaper reported that this number had increased to 230, with 50 sentences being handed down during the week of June 14 alone. While the death sentence is by no means a rare recourse in Egypt’s judicial system, this soaring number of death sentences is unparalleled in Egypt’s history. According to local experts, the surge has been brought about by the country’s skyrocketing violent crime rates. Egypt’s increasingly dire economic situation has brought about a spike in unemployment and poverty, which has in turn fueled a rise in despair-driven crime. This situation has been exacerbated by general dissatisfaction with government institutions, especially the judicial system. In recent months, the violence has spiraled out of control. As journalist Khairy Ramadan explained, “The danger is everywhere, and killing has been taking place lately for the most trivial reasons…killing has become a daily routine.” In light of this situation, the rise in death sentences is widely perceived as the government’s attempt to deter further crime.
While capital punishment is a hotly contested issue in all corners of the globe, it is hardly controversial to assert that the grave nature of such a penalty requires that strong due process protections be put in place to ensure that no innocent person is ever executed. However, this question is highly contentious in Egypt due to serious deficiencies in the country’s judicial system. Although the number of death sentences that have been recently handed down is itself enough to raise the concern of human rights defenders, the unjust process through which verdicts are found creates yet greater reason for alarm. As the 2007 Countries at the Crossroads Report on Egypt notes, Egypt has consistently failed to observe citizens’ due process rights, despite the fact that these rights are formally enshrined in the constitution. This is largely a result of Egypt’s decades-old state of emergency, which the parliament extended for an additional 2 year period in May 2008. The emergency laws effectively suspend basic legal rights by permitting indefinite pre-trial detention without charge or trial and rescinding fair trial guarantees. According to the State Department’s 2008 Human Rights Report, several Egyptian detainees alleged that they were either completely denied access to counsel or were only granted access at the time of trial over the course of the past year. In addition, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has noted that confessions obtained under duress continue to be accepted in court.
While rights are oftentimes violated in cases tried in civil courts, the situation is far worse in the country’s military court system, a parallel judicial system created by emergency legislation. Emergency laws grant Egypt the right to try civilians who have committed national security crimes such as terrorism in military courts. In addition, a 2007 amendment provides the state with the authority to refer defendants to any judicial body authorized by the law, which has allowed Egypt to violate its citizens’ right to equality before the law by referring civil rights activists, political dissidents, feminists, and homosexuals to military courts. These trials are grossly unfair in a wide variety of ways. By trying civilians for non-military crimes in military tribunals, denying defendants access to lawyers during the pre-trial period, extracting evidence through the use of torture, and banning trial observers from attending military trials, Egypt has repeatedly violated its citizens’ right to “a public hearing by competent, independent, and impartial tribunal established by the law.” Last year’s high-profile conviction of leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood is particularly illustrative of the unjust nature of the military courts. In February 2007, President Hosni Mubarak transferred these men’s cases, along with 23 others, to a military tribunal after a civilian criminal court had initially acquitted them. Unsurprisingly, 25 men, 7 of them in absentia, were sentenced to prison terms of up to 10 years by the military tribunal.
Most alarmingly, the punishment that accompanies these unjust verdicts is oftentimes quite extreme considering the nature of the crime. In Egypt, the death sentence is not restricted to the most violent crimes. On the contrary, it can be handed down as a punishment for 90 different crimes according to Egyptian law. In addition to premeditated murder, these crimes include rape, kidnapping, terrorism, and espionage, along with such lesser crimes as drug-related offenses and various “political crimes.” Due to the fact that many of these offenses, most notably acts of terrorism and “political offenses,” can be tried in the notoriously unfair military court system, the recent spike in death sentences is especially ominous.
In order for this grave situation to be addressed, Egypt’s state of emergency must be revoked. Unfortunately, the recent draft law on anti-terrorism, which is meant to eventually replace emergency legislation, continues to include provisions that will allow the basic rights of Egyptians to be violated. While the restrictive security laws remain in place, due process guarantees will continue to be ignored, with sometimes fatal consequences. Unfortunately, Egypt’s judicial shortfalls have other multifaceted ramifications. A recent article noted that the perceived lack of justice in Egypt, and more specifically the slow pace of legal proceedings and the lack of implementation of verdicts, has partially driven the increase in violent crime and the resultant rise in death sentences by compelling Egyptians to take justice into their own hands. Thus, judicial weaknesses are doubly responsible for permeating a deadly cycle of violence that will only be stopped when the legal rights of Egyptians are unconditionally observed.
