Egypt Watch

24 Muslim Brotherhood members sentenced to death in Egypt

Damnhour’s Criminal Court sentenced, on Thursday, 24 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, including the secretary of the group’s office in Behera Province. The court indicted 16 defendants, six of them in absentia, accusing them of blowing up a police bus in Rashid in 2015, and indicted eight other defendants, two of them in absentia, who are accused of killing a policeman.

The people sentenced in the first case are Mohamed Mohsen Swedan, Mohamed Mahmoud Aboul Saad, Maher Abdel Moneim, Maher Abdel Hamid, Abdel Hady Zayat, Ayman Malek, Ahmed Al-Zare’, Al-Moatasem Bellah Al-Zare’, Said Khalil, Saad Al-Haddad, Abdouh Abu Diab, Magdy Younis, Mohamed Waly, Abdel Mawla Ebaid, and Gamal Moukhtar.

The people sentenced in the second case are Hamada Fath Albab, Mohamed Bakr, Bade’ Bakr, Ahmed Zourah, Ahmed Al-Sawy, Awad Al-Naggar, Abu Ebaidah Al-Amoury, Ahmed Gheit, Mohamed Al-Amoury, Ekramy Ghaly, and Sobhy Al-Aasy.

These new death sentences came while 69 prisoners are awaiting execution due to final death sentences that cannot not be appealed, according to the Egyptian Network for Human Rights. In June, Egypt’s Court of Cassation sentenced 12 MB leaders to death, including the eminent politician Mohamed Beltagy, ex-minister Osama Yassin, eminent preacher Safwat Hegazy, and professor Abdel Rahman Al-Bar. On 4 July, the Egyptian authorities executed a university student due to a death sentence issued against him on charges of attempting to assassinate General Moustafa Al-Nemr, the former security manager of Alexandria.

Human Rights Watch has renewed its call on Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to suspend the death sentences after a sharp rise. In 2021 the Egyptian authorities executed over 51 people. In October 2020, HRW recorded the execution of 49 people in only 10 days. According to Amnesty International, Egypt is ranked third for carrying out the highest number of executions all over the world, just after China and Iran.