Rights watchdog slams Egypt for ‘torture-tainted’ executions

EGYPTIAN authorities executed at least 57 men and women in October and November alone, nearly double the recorded 32 people similarly killed throughout 2019 and highlighting the depth of the human rights crisis in the country, Amnesty International said yesterday.

The latest executions included at least 15 people sentenced to death in cases relating to political violence following “grossly unfair” trials marred by forced confessions and other violations including torture and enforced disappearances, the human rights watchdog said in a statement.

“These executions are particularly appalling given the well-documented and systematic breaches of fair trial rights in Egypt, with courts often relying on torture-tainted ‘confessions’,” Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa research and advocacy director Philip Luther said.

“Not only are the Egyptian authorities trampling on the right to life in shocking disregard for their obligations under international law, but they are also punishing the brave human rights defenders at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) documenting and speaking out these violations.”

Authorities arrested EIPR staff members between November 15 and 19 and interrogated them about the organisation’s criminal justice work, including its November publication on the alarming rise in executions.

According to Doha-based news channel Al Jazeera, rights groups estimate that some 60 000 detainees in Egypt are political prisoners including secular activists, journalists, lawyers, academics and Islamic scholars arrested in a crackdown on dissent by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s government.

Cairo, however, denies accusations of human rights violations.

Yesterday, Amnesty International said the recent killings followed an incident at Tora maximum security prison in September when four prisoners on death row and four members of security forces were killed.

The rights group said it had spoken to lawyers and relatives of prisoners who had been executed or were currently on death row and had reviewed relevant legal documents, as well as reports from Egyptian non-governmental organisations, local media and social media posts by relatives of murder victims as well as those detained and executed.

Among those on death row is Wael Tawadros, a monk convicted of killing Bishop Anba Epiphanius in April last year, after a “torture-tainted” confession.