Amnesty International has censured Egypt for handing down death sentences to more than 500 supporters of the country’s ousted President Mohamed Morsi in a “grotesque” ruling.
In a statement issued on Monday, the UK-based rights group described the mass death sentences as a “grotesque example of the shortcomings and the selective nature of Egypt’s justice system.”
According to Egyptian media, the Minya Criminal Court sentenced 529 supporters of the former president to death on Monday for their alleged role in the violence that erupted following Morsi’s ouster in July last year.
The mass trial, which was one of the largest in Egypt over the past decades, lasted only two sessions.
“Imposing death sentences of this magnitude in a single case makes Egypt surpass most other countries’ use of capital punishment in a year,” said Amnesty International Deputy Middle East and North Africa Program Director Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.
According to the Amnesty official, the mass death penalties have been delivered to Morsi’s supporters while Egyptian courts continue to “ignore gross human rights violations by the security forces.”
Sahraoui further stated, “While thousands of Morsi’s supporters languish in jail, there has not been an adequate investigation into the deaths of hundreds of protesters.”
The Muslim Brotherhood has also slammed the court ruling as a “clear violation of all norms of humane and legal justice.”
Egypt has been experiencing unrelenting violence since the country’s first democratically-elected president was deposed by the army on July 3, 2013. Hundreds have lost their lives in the ensuing violence across the country.
Since then, Egypt’s military-backed government has launched a bloody crackdown on Morsi’s supporters and arrested thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members, including the party’s senior leaders.
MKA/NN
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