The Brotherhood’s guide and 7 of the group’s leaders were sentenced to death in Egypt

From right to left: Mohamed Badie, Mahmoud Ezzat, Mohamed El-Beltagy, and Safwat Hegazy (social media sites)

An exceptional court in Egypt sentenced to death the guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, and seven of the group’s leaders, after convicting them of organizing violent acts for “terrorist purposes” during a sit-in in Cairo in 2013.

Yesterday, Monday, the “First Terrorism Circuit” of the State Security Criminal Court sentenced to death by hanging the group’s guide, Mohamed Badie, Mahmoud Ezzat, the acting guide, the former member of the People’s Assembly, Mohamed El-Beltagy, the former member of the People’s Assembly, Amr Zaki, Osama Yassin, the former Minister of Sports, and Safwat Hegazy, Assem Abdel Majed and Mohamed Abdel Maqsoud, regarding the accusations against them in the case known in the media as “the platform events.”

Egyptian press reports stated that in September 2021, the court heard the order to refer the defendants in the “Platform Events” case, where the Public Prosecution accused them of leading a group that was established in contravention of the provisions of the law, the purpose of which was to call for the disruption of the provisions of the Constitution and the law, and to prevent state institutions and public authorities from exercising Its actions, attacking the personal freedom of citizens, public freedoms and rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the law, and harming national unity and social peace.

The Muslim Brotherhood organized a sit-in in Rabaa Al-Adawiya Square in Cairo to protest the army’s overthrow of the late President Mohamed Morsi - Egypt’s first elected civilian president - in July 2013.

In August of the same year, the security forces forcibly dispersed this sit-in, which led to the killing of more than a thousand people, cadres and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, after which the Brotherhood was officially classified in Egypt as a “terrorist group.”

The authorities subsequently launched a campaign of repression against the group, during which thousands of its members were arrested and referred to trial, most of whom were sentenced to prison. Death sentences had previously been issued against Badie and many of the group’s leaders, but some of them were annulled by the Court of Cassation, and no sentences were issued against them. Carrying out any executions against Brotherhood leaders.

The Brotherhood describes the rulings against its members and leaders as “vindictive and unjust,” and considered the rulings issued “lacking the lowest levels of credibility, and devoid of justice and integrity,” and called on the free world, with all its institutions and organizations, to stop implementing these rulings.

Human rights organizations criticized the death sentences issued by the Egyptian judiciary against dissidents.

Human rights defenders accuse Egypt - which ranks 135 out of 140 in the Global Justice Project's Rule of Law Index - of attacking dissidents, activists, journalists, and even those living in exile, sometimes by harassing their families living in Egypt.

Source: Agencies