On the occasion of the International Day against the Death Penalty, which corresponds to October 10 of each year, Egypt watch monitors the details of the implementation of 77 executions in Egypt within five years. The authorities claim the executed are criminals, at a time when local and international Human Rights Organizations assert that they are against political opponents.

HROs say that the regime directed criminal charges against them, to undermine them and punish them for their rejection of the military coup that the army led in 2013. While opponents always complain about the lack of justice in these trials, the Egyptian authorities refuse to compromise “the integrity of the judiciary” and say that all of them have been executed in cases related to violence and murder. The execution of the first death sentence for a political prisoner during the second year of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s presidency began in 2015.

According to Egyptian law, death sentences are carried out after ratification by the country’s president, and he also has the right to pardon and commute the sentence. Cairo usually says it does not have political prisoners, abides by the law and the constitution, and that its judiciary is independent and impartial.

7 cases in 2015

On March 7, the Egyptian authorities carried out the first execution during the reign of “Al-Sisi,” linked to political incidents (violence charges), against “Mahmoud Ramadan” for his conviction of throwing a boy from the top of a building during violent confrontations in the summer of 2013, amid denial of the accusation from his family. On May 17, 6 convicts were executed in a case known as “Arab Sharkas,” after the Supreme Military Court upheld the ruling in March 2015.

Execution case in 2016

On December 15, the authorities executed “Adel Habbara,” who had two final death sentences, on charges including the killing of 25 soldiers in Sinai in 2013, months after his arrest, in September of the same year.

15 cases in 2017

On December 26, the authorities executed 15 convicts in a “terrorism case” that occurred in North Sinai, against the background of charges that they denied validity, including “attacking ambushes and police installations, carrying out murder operations, and joining a terrorist cell.”

4 cases in 2018

On January 2, the authorities executed four convicts in the military case known in the media as the “events of Kafr El-Sheikh Stadium” in 2015. The case contained a bombing that resulted in 3 dead and two injured, all of them students of the Military Academy, amid repeated denials from the defendants and their lawyers and appeals Human rights.

18 cases in 2019

On February 7, three people were executed, including two Taliban, after they were convicted of killing the son of the judge, the counselor, “Mr. Mahmoud Al-Murli,” in the city of Mansoura (north) in September 2014, and joining a group established in violation of the law, in reference to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB).

On February 13, the authorities executed three opponents after being convicted of charges, including the killing of Major General “Nabil Farag,” in September 2013, in the events of the city of Kerdasa, west of Cairo, which witnessed clashes between protesters and police forces.

On February 20, nine young men, most of them from the MB, were executed, among them Muhammad, the son of the imprisoned academic “Taha Wahdan,” a member of the group’s counseling office. Despite their repeated denials, the nine were convicted of being involved in the assassination of the former Public Prosecutor Hisham Barakat in the summer of 2015, as the authorities did not respond to international pleas not to carry out these executions.

On December 5, 3 convicts were executed in the “Niger Embassy” and “Helwan Church” cases, on the back of accusations, which the convicts denied, related to violence and murder.

32 cases in 2020

On February 25, eight people were executed for carrying out attacks against Christians in 2016 and 2017, which led to the killing of 75 Christians in a case known in the media as the “bombing of churches.”

On March 4, the authorities executed Hisham Ashmawy, a former officer in the Egyptian Special Forces, after he was convicted in cases related to attacks on security forces and prominent personalities after the Libyan side handed him over to Egypt in 2019.

On June 27, Al-Libi Abdul Rahim Al-Mismari was executed, who was arrested in mid-November 2017, following accusations of masterminding what is known in the media as the Oasis Accident 2017, which killed 16 policemen on the road in western Egypt.

On July 28, seven people were executed, convicted of “killing a police officer and stealing his weapon,” while he was in a quarrel in the Ismailia governorate in 2013, amid international human rights condemnations and an exile from the accused.

On October 3, 15 dissidents were executed, and they were convicted in 3 cases, Alexandria Library, Kerdasa Police Station, and Soldiers of Egypt 1 on the grounds of accusations of terrorism and murder.

Some of them were arrested in connection with protests against the overthrow of “Morsi.” There is no accurate count of the non-final or canceled death sentences in Egypt, but unofficial human rights organizations count them in the hundreds.

On the other hand, the Egyptian authorities refuse, according to previous official statements, any prejudice to the Egyptian judiciary, and that local and international human rights bodies are considered “politicized.”