07 July 2017•Update: 09 July 2017
By Hussein Mahmoud Ragab al-Kabani and Daniel Gallego
CAIRO
Hundreds of Egyptians have been sentenced to death since July 3, 2013, when Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president and a Muslim Brotherhood leader, was ousted and imprisoned in a bloody military coup.
One of the most notable raft of sentences was issued by the Minya criminal court in March of 2014, when 529 people -- including Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie -- were sentenced to death en masse.
Many of these sentences were subsequently reversed by Egypt’s Court of Appeals after being challenged by lawyers for the defendants.
Twenty-three people, however, remain on death row, and if President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi approves the sentences, they will soon be executed by hanging.
Many observers, however, say the president -- who, as defense minister, spearheaded the coup -- is unlikely to show clemency.
Ezzet Ghoneim, director of the Egyptian Network for Rights and Freedoms, an NGO, told Anadolu Agency that the al-Sisi regime’s penchant for issuing death penalties was unlikely to change in the absence of a dramatic policy reorientation.
Of the 23 people now awaiting execution, two were sentenced to death for allegedly sowing “anarchy and violence” during the forcible dispersion of a pro-Morsi sit-in in mid-2013; four for allegedly carrying out a deadly bomb attack; six for allegedly murdering a police officer and judge in 2014; one for allegedly taking part in “violent acts” after the coup; and 10 for involvement in a deadly brawl that erupted during a football match in Port Said in 2012.
Since the coup in mid-2013, a total of eight death penalties have been carried out by the authorities.
One person was executed last December for allegedly killing 25 soldiers, while six others were hanged in May of 2015 for allegedly killing soldiers and being members of a terrorist group with alleged links to Daesh.
The latter case came under widespread criticism, however, since some of those accused of terrorist activity had reportedly been in the custody of the Interior Ministry at the time of the alleged incident.
The first death penalty to be carried out under al-Sisi took place in May of 2015, when Mahmoud Ramadan, a Brotherhood member, was executed for allegedly throwing a young man off a rooftop in Alexandria in the wake of the coup.
Aside from the 23 people now on death row, there is no official figure for how many death penalties have been issued in total by Egypt’s higher courts. But human rights groups say hundreds of people have been condemned to death since the coup.
According to Ghoneim, more than 350 people have been sentenced to death and are now waiting for the courts to review appeals lodged by their lawyers.
In July of this year, the Cairo criminal court upheld death penalties handed down against 20 people accused of involvement in the murder of a police officer in 2013.
In the four years since Morsi's ouster, the Egyptian authorities have waged a relentless crackdown on dissent, killing hundreds of his supporters and throwing thousands -- some say tens of thousands -- behind bars.
*Ali Murat Alhas contributed to this report from Ankara
