Egypt issues 194 death sentences in first quarter of 2015: rights monitor

Nearly 200 people have been sentenced to death in Egypt during the first quarter of 2015, a non-governmental human rights monitor has found.

Death sentences were passed against 194 people from 1 January to 31 March, according to the Egyptian Observatory of Rights and Freedoms (EOFR), which published a new report entitled “The State of Fair Trials” on Tuesday.

The report also found that 2,381 people had been sentenced to a total of over 11,666 years in the first three months of the year.

Five of the 148 trials were carried out in military courts – since October 2014, authorities have been able to try civilians in military courts under an anti-terrorism law that criminalises “attacks on state institutions” including bridges and roads.

The EOFR, founded in August 2013 after the overthrow of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi, keeps monthly tallies of trials and sentences in Egypt.

The group has been accused by the right-wing Egyptian daily Yaum Sabie of “defaming state institutions, the security services and the judiciary” and failing to make public the location of its headquarters.

Egypt sentenced 509 people to death in 2014, which accounted for 65 percent of all death sentences in the region.

In its annual report, Amnesty International found that the death sentences were issued “after mass trials that were grossly unfair”.

The figures represented a jump of more than 400 on the previous year’s numbers, and contributed to a “dramatic rise” in the number of death sentences issued worldwide.

Despite the rising numbers of sentences passed, only one person has actually been put to death since a 2013 popularly backed military takeover that swept elected president Morsi from power.

Mahmoud Ramadan, convicted last year of throwing a teenager off a roof in Alexandria during unrest following Morsi’s ousting, was executed by hanging on 7 March.

Amnesty International had called for a retrial over concerns that Ramadan’s conviction was “based on very fragile evidence,” while the African Union, of which Egypt is a member, appealed for the execution to be delayed pending further investigation.