Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) stressed that the final ruling issued by the Egyptian Court of Cassation to execute 12 prominent opposition leaders in the case of Rabaa sit-in dispersal is a new crime added to the mass killing by the Egyptian army and police forces of more than a thousand Egyptian citizens.
AOHR UK added that the Egyptian authorities issued this decision days before the 8th anniversary of the massacres at Rabaa Al-Adawiya, Al-Nahda Square, and a number of squares in other Egyptian governorates on August 14, 2013.
AOHR UK strongly condemned the insistence of the Egyptian authorities to commit a major crime by killing those who escaped death at that time of the mass killings, using the rulings of a politicized judiciary system that is no longer independent but is being used as a repressive tool of the Egyptian regime.
AOHR UK pointed out that while 12 Egyptian dissidents face the death penalty, and dozens face imprisonment for varying periods, the perpetrators of the crimes against humanity continue to enjoy complete impunity, without any formal action taken against them.
The Egyptian Court of Cassation had issued a final ruling today in the case of the dispersal of the Rabaa sit-in, with the death penalty by execution against 12 detainees including Abdel Rahman Al-Bar, Mohamed Al-Beltagy, Safwat Hegazy, Osama Yassin, Ahmed Aref, Ihab Wagdy, Mohamed El-Farmawy, Mustafa Al-Bermawi, Ahmed Farouk Kamel, Haitham El-Araby, Mohamed Mahmoud Zenati, Abdel Azim Ibrahim, and 437 others, including 22 children, were sentenced to prison terms of varying periods.
AOHR UK stressed that the court’s ruling is a new attempt by the Egyptian regime to obscure the fact that the security forces committed the largest mass murder in modern Egyptian history, in collaboration of the Egyptian judiciary, which issued a decision by the Public Prosecutor allowing the security forces to break the opposition’s sit-ins, and then preventing victims’ attempts or their families from getting legal redress, and an example of this is the case of Dr. Mohamed El-Beltagy, who demanded an investigation into the killing of his minor daughter, “Asmaa”, however, the court issued a death sentence against him today!
AOHR UK emphasized that the international silence resulted in allowing [perpetrators of this massacre from escaping punishment, which is also encouraging them now to issue the aforementioned extrajudicial execution sentences with the aim to crush and silence the opposition and anyone calling for reform or justice.
AOHR UK called on all civil society organisations around the world to pressure their governments to take strict stances to stand against this regime, which committed the most heinous crimes and whose officials (perpetrators) are still enjoying impunity and planning to kill another 12 Egyptians who have previously escaped their bullets.
