Egypt Court Sentences 75 to Death Over Deadly 2013 Protests

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Wounded supporters of Mohammed Morsi, the ousted Egyptian president, lying on the floor of a makeshift hospital in Cairo after a sit-in in August 2013.CreditCreditManu Brabo/Associated Press

By Mohamed Ezz

Sept. 8, 2018

CAIRO — An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced 75 people to death, including leaders of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, for their involvement in a 2013 sit-in protest in Cairo that spiraled into violence and resulted in the death of hundreds of demonstrators by security forces.

Cairo Criminal Court was considering the case of 739 people facing charges ranging from killing police officers, incitement to violence and damaging property during the 2013 violence in Rabaa al-Adawiya, a square in Cairo. Forty-seven people, including the spiritual leader of Muslim the Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, were sentenced to life in prison.

The mass trial has been widely condemned by human rights organizations, with Amnesty International calling it a “grotesque parody of justice.”

Mahmoud Abou Zeid, a photojournalist known as Shawkan who was detained for photographing the antigovernment protests, was sentenced to five years in prison. Because he has been held since his arrest, time served will be counted toward his sentence and he is to be released. He faces five more years of probation, however.

Taher Abu Nasr, Mr. Abou Zeid’s lawyer, said he was dissatisfied with the sentence but acknowledged that it “was expected.”

The August 2013 sit-in was staged by supporters of Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, who had been ousted by the military weeks earlier. Clashes and gunfire broke out, and at least 817 people were killed when security forces broke up the protests.

“These sentences were handed down in a disgraceful mass trial of more than 700 people, and we condemn today’s verdict in the strongest terms,” Amnesty International said in a statement on Saturday.

“That not a single police officer has been brought to account for the killing of at least 900 people in the Rabaa and Nahda protests shows what a mockery of justice this trial was,” it added, referring to Rabaa al-Adawiya and another Cairo square.

Mr. Abou Zeid was arrested with two other journalists, one from France and one from the United States, on Aug. 14, 2013, when he was covering the clashes between the military and supporters of Mr. Morsi. The foreign reporters were quickly freed, but Mr. Abou Zeid was charged with weapons possession, illegal assembly, murder and attempted murder.

An independent international jury selected him this year as the laureate of the Unesco/Guillermo Cano Press Freedom Prize, which honors a person, organization or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to press freedom, especially in the face of danger.

The Egyptian government criticized the decision, with the Foreign Ministry noting that the photojournalist had been accused of “terrorism and criminal offenses.”

“We warn against the politicization of Unesco and its involvement in the implementation of the agenda of certain countries, while drifting away from its cultural mission,” the ministry said in a statement.