Egypt ranked third in the world in the rates of executions during the past year 2021, with at least 83 cases, including eight women, while the countries of the world led in the rate of death sentences, according to a recent report issued by Amnesty International.
The report emphasized that many of the executions were carried out after exceptionally unfair trials and based on confessions extracted under torture and coercion, which supports the assumptions that the regime of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi used the death penalty as a weapon to terrorize and oppress the Egyptian people.
The figure is much higher
Amnesty International documented that the Sisi regime executed 83 people in 2021, a 22% decrease from 2020 when the organization recorded the execution of 107 people. Also, death sentences were recorded against 356 people during the past year, an increase of 34% over 2020, when the organization recorded death sentences against 264 people. Despite the horror of these numbers, which put Egypt in third place in the world in the execution of death sentences after China and Iran and first in the world in issuing death sentences, they remain underestimated, as this is what the organization was able to monitor only, according to its report. According to an initial count that we conducted based on the data of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an independent human rights organization, the year 2021 witnessed death sentences against at least 408 people, including 75 people who were given final death sentences after they had exhausted all stages of litigation, which means that can execute them in any time. A previous report by the independent Mada Masr website monitored the issuance of 591 death sentences in criminal cases during 2021 and political matters, which is 66% more than the figures mentioned in the Amnesty International report, which confirms that the reality is much worse.
According to the Amnesty International report, the executions were carried out after unfair trials and based on confessions extracted under torture, such as what happened in the case of the monk Isaiah who was executed after being convicted of killing Anba Epiphanius, Bishop of the Monastery of Anba Makar in Wadi al-Natrun, where Isaiah affirmed that he was wronged and innocent and that his confessions The note in the case papers was extracted after severe torture, including stripping, beatings, and electric shocks, but the court did not investigate his allegations of torture and sentenced him to death, and was carried out the sentence.
The regime continued to carry out mass executions based on convictions in mass trials that included grossly unfair trial procedures, as mass trials make it impossible to apply fair trial procedures to each defendant individually. In contrast, the cases of dozens or even hundreds of defendants are heard simultaneously. On top of all these abuses, the Sisi regime has carried out some executions in secret without informing family members of those who will be executed and without allowing them to visit the last farewell, a blatant violation of Egyptian laws and human rights.
Community terror
Egypt reverses the international trend to reduce the use of the death penalty. One hundred nine countries have permanently abolished the death penalty, eight countries have abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes, limiting it to the most severe crimes, and 28 countries have abolished it in practice. They have not imposed the death penalty for any offence in the last ten years despite the fact stipulated in the laws. Despite this global trend, Egypt remains one of those 56 countries still adopting the death penalty. This reflects the thirst of President Al-Sisi’s regime to use the death penalty as a tool of revenge against its opponents and to create terror and fear in society. While most countries of the world tend to abolish or stop the death penalty, the regime continues to use it. It even expands unprecedentedly, confirming that its use has a purpose exceeding executing a court ruling.
