Five-hundred and twenty-nine supporters of the overthrown Muslim Brotherhood regime were sentenced to death in Egypt on Monday for the murder of a policeman, and for attacks on people and property. The trial lasted only two days, and the court’s decision seems to reflect the wide-scale crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood opposition following the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. The Brotherhood has been branded a terrorist organization by Egypt’s government, and a ban on all members and activities concerning the Islamist group was sanctioned in September 2013. The policies of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi have moved the country further away from reaching the goals of those who began protests in Tahrir Square over three years ago.
According to Amnesty International, this is the largest single batch of simultaneous death sentences the organization has seen in modern history. Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy Middle East and North Africa programme director at Amnesty, described the decision as “injustice writ large.” She continued, “Imposing death sentences of this magnitude in a single case makes Egypt surpass most other countries’ use of capital punishment in a year.”
Abdullah el-Haddad, the spokesperson for the Muslim Brotherhood in London, has dismissed the verdict as a “threat message,” and also called the new government a “dictatorship that Abdul Fattah el-Sisi is trying to establish.” Egypt’s foreign ministry emphasized that the decision can be appealed and “would be overturned as soon as the defendants demanded a retrial.” The head of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies also harshly criticized the court, calling the verdict a “disaster.” Ideally pressure from within Egypt will resolve the abusive sentences without the need for significant international interference.
It remains unknown if the verdict was influenced by authorities or was a result of rejuvenated nationalism among anti-Brotherhood Egyptians. On Tuesday, leader of the Brotherhood Mohamed Badie, the head of its political wing Saad al-Katatny and 683 other supporters and officials will be tried by the same court. In addition, three journalists from Al Jazeera will be tried on the accusation of being linked to the Brotherhood and spreading “false news.” The three journalists have been held in Egypt for the past 86 days.
The verdict yesterday was not the deliverance of justice but a departure from it. Relatives of the condemned responded accordingly, swarming the streets to decry the ruling. For a military government that has been trying to tighten its grip on power, yesterday’s decision may have just undone it. Time will tell if the ruling is enough to foment an uprising against an embedded military regime. For the people of Egypt, one must hope that the possibility of 529 executions is enough to generate change.
A version of this article appeared in the Tuesday, March 25 print edition. Email the WSN Editorial Board at [email protected].