Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi’s pardoning of 100 prisoners including three Al Jazeera journalists is a right move even though it came late. After overthrowing the country’s first democratically-elected president Mohammad Mursi in a coup in 2013, the military led by Al Sisi has unleashed a reign of terror in which hundreds of Mursi supporters and pro-democracy activists have been killed and thousands jailed. Mursi and top leaders of his now-banned Muslim Brotherhood have been sentenced to death by military courts.
A Cairo court on August 29 sentenced Al Jazeera journalists, Egyptian Baher Mohamed, Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Australian Peter Greste, to three years in jail after finding them guilty of ‘aiding a terrorist organisation’, a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood. The trio were arrested in December 2013 while working for Al Jazeera in Cairo and spent over 400 days in jail. While Greste was pardoned and deported to his home country, his colleagues remained in prison. But in the retrial Greste was also sentenced along with his colleagues. At the same hearing, another six Al Jazeera scribes were tried in absentia on the same charges and were sentenced to 10 years in jail.
It is a practice of rulers in the region to pardon prisoners ahead of feasts and national celebrations. But Sisi’s decision has clear political intentions. The announcement has come a day before his trip to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly meeting. Over the past year, Al Sisi and his cabinet, governing by decree in the absence of an elected parliament, have provided near total impunity to security forces and issued laws that severely curtailed civil and political rights, erasing the human rights gains of the 2011 uprising that ousted the long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak.
The controversial protest law, passed in November 2013, states that among other things, protesters have to give the authorities a three-day notice before protests. Violators face hefty fines and prison sentences. In May, the Obama administration sent a critical, six-page report on Egypt’s rights violations to Congress but still recommended the US to continue sending $1.3bn in mostly military aid.
Recently, Arab Organisation for Human Rights in UK issued a report describing Egypt’s prisons as cemeteries, adding that 40 prisoners died while in custody in August alone, either in jails or in police stations. Of the 40 who died in their cells, 19 were remanded without charge. The report, titled ‘The cemeteries of the living’ says Egyptian authorities do not care about detainees’ lives, as cells are overcrowded and corruption is rife. Egyptian rights groups documented at least 124 deaths in custody since August 2013 as a result of medical negligence, torture, or ill-treatment. Draconian laws and continuing human rights violations are major threats to Egypt’s civil society and cosmetic changes are not enough to correct its stained image.
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi’s pardoning of 100 prisoners including three Al Jazeera journalists is a right move even though it came late. After overthrowing the country’s first democratically-elected president Mohammad Mursi in a coup in 2013, the military led by Al Sisi has unleashed a reign of terror in which hundreds of Mursi supporters and pro-democracy activists have been killed and thousands jailed. Mursi and top leaders of his now-banned Muslim Brotherhood have been sentenced to death by military courts.
A Cairo court on August 29 sentenced Al Jazeera journalists, Egyptian Baher Mohamed, Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Australian Peter Greste, to three years in jail after finding them guilty of ‘aiding a terrorist organisation’, a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood. The trio were arrested in December 2013 while working for Al Jazeera in Cairo and spent over 400 days in jail. While Greste was pardoned and deported to his home country, his colleagues remained in prison. But in the retrial Greste was also sentenced along with his colleagues. At the same hearing, another six Al Jazeera scribes were tried in absentia on the same charges and were sentenced to 10 years in jail.
It is a practice of rulers in the region to pardon prisoners ahead of feasts and national celebrations. But Sisi’s decision has clear political intentions. The announcement has come a day before his trip to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly meeting. Over the past year, Al Sisi and his cabinet, governing by decree in the absence of an elected parliament, have provided near total impunity to security forces and issued laws that severely curtailed civil and political rights, erasing the human rights gains of the 2011 uprising that ousted the long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak.
The controversial protest law, passed in November 2013, states that among other things, protesters have to give the authorities a three-day notice before protests. Violators face hefty fines and prison sentences. In May, the Obama administration sent a critical, six-page report on Egypt’s rights violations to Congress but still recommended the US to continue sending $1.3bn in mostly military aid.
Recently, Arab Organisation for Human Rights in UK issued a report describing Egypt’s prisons as cemeteries, adding that 40 prisoners died while in custody in August alone, either in jails or in police stations. Of the 40 who died in their cells, 19 were remanded without charge. The report, titled ‘The cemeteries of the living’ says Egyptian authorities do not care about detainees’ lives, as cells are overcrowded and corruption is rife. Egyptian rights groups documented at least 124 deaths in custody since August 2013 as a result of medical negligence, torture, or ill-treatment. Draconian laws and continuing human rights violations are major threats to Egypt’s civil society and cosmetic changes are not enough to correct its stained image.
