The Muslim Brotherhood condemns the execution of Mahmoud Ramadan. Mahmoud was hanged in Cairo at 7am on Saturday 7 March by the Egyptian military backed government.
Dr. Amr Darrag, spokesman of the Muslim Brotherhood’s new Administration managing affairs outside Egypt stated that the execution came despite an urgent letter from the African Commission addressed to Abdel Fatteh al-Sisi dated 26 February 2015 to immediately suspend Mahmoud Ramadan’s death penalty. By executing Mahmoud Ramadan the Egyptian government has clearly challenged the authority of the African Union and acted in violation of international law.
Mahmoud’s execution is the first execution of the many hundreds of prisoners that it has sentenced to death since the military coup overthrew Egypt’s first democratically elected President in June 2013.
Egypt came under international criticism when it decided to sentence to death hundreds of prisoners following mass trials that were condemned as being far below internationally acceptable standards. The then UN Human Rights chief, Navi Pillay, described the trials as “obscene and a complete travesty of justice”.
The Muslim Brotherhood has worked with leading international lawyers to try to prevent Egypt’s military government carrying out the death penalties. In April 2014 the Muslim Brotherhood submitted legal papers to the African Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights requesting that the African Commission intervene in the death penalties. Mahmoud’s case was one of many that were added to that complaint.
The African Commission accepted the case and on 24 April 2014 and wrote to the Egyptian President detailing Interim Measures that Ordered him to suspend the death penalties with immediate effect and investigate the unfair legal processes that led to hundreds of death penalties being issued simultaneously.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s application to the African Commission highlighted that the trial proceedings were a complete “sham, lasting no more than a few hours, in which no evidence was presented against the individual accused, defense lawyers were silenced, and a guilty conviction was summarily entered against the entire groups. It is as though no judicial proceedings took place at all”.
The MB spokesman said that the Egyptian government has consistently ignored the directions of the African Commission to suspend the death penalties citing Appeals that were available to the prisoners. It is now clear that the legal process in Egypt will not help those condemned to death without anything that could be remotely termed a fair trial
Tayab Ali, the leading British lawyer who advises the Muslim Brotherhood said “the Egyptian government is making a mockery of international law. No other country would be allowed to sentence hundreds of political prisoners in a single hearing and then actually carry out the executions whilst being ordered by the highest legal authority in Africa to suspend those death sentences. The process that led to these death sentences falls far below the standards acceptable by international law. The execution of Mahmoud Ramadan should be referred to more properly as the murder of Mahmoud Ramadan. We will now take these death penalties as a matter of urgency to the African Union and the wider international community”.
Leading international lawyer Rodney Dixon QC said “This is an atrocious act following a wholesale unfair trial. The regime paid no heed to the African Union’s calls for the suspension of all death sentences. It is now more urgent than ever for the international community to stop the executions of those who oppose the regime”
Yehia Hamed who is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s new administration managing affairs outside Egypt said “We condemn the execution of Mahmoud Ramadan. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. Many of my friends and colleagues have also been imprisoned by the Egyptian military without a fair trial and condemned to death in order to silence their quest for a democratic and fair Egypt. We make a promise to the people of Egypt that the Muslim Brotherhood will not forget them. We will work tirelessly to restore democracy and the rule of law in Egypt”
Source:
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