18 June 2021; MEMO: The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) has today requested that the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights urgently intervene in the imminent execution of twelve men sentenced to death following the decision by Egypt's highest appeals court's to confirm the death sentences on 14 June 2021.
The death penalties followed a mass trial of seven hundred and thirty nine people over their participation in pro-democracy sit-ins in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya square in July and August 2013.
Amnesty International has described the trials' sentences as 'shameful,' and according to Human Rights Watch the trials 'failed to assess the individual guilt of each defendant, yet resulted in lengthy sentences or even the death penalty.'
Despite such strong international condemnation of the mass trials, the Court of Cassation upheld the death sentences, leaving the detainees liable to imminent execution, with no domestic appeal. As Egypt is a member of the African Union, its human rights body, the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights, has the jurisdiction to order Egypt to suspend the executions.
Read the full letter here.
