The death penalty exposes the judicial system of Egypt under Abdel Fattah el Sisi’s rule
KARACHI: This is with reference to the death sentence that Egypt’s politicised judiciary handed down to the country’s first popularly elected, legal but deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, along with 100 other defendants. The court accused Morsi of plotting jailbreaks and attacking the police during the anti-Hosni Mubarak revolution. This verdict is an open challenge to the principles of justice as a popularly elected president, with a mandate of 52 per cent of Egyptians, was overthrown through an ultimatum issued by the army chief in which he asked the civilian government to stop ‘violence’.
In the modern world, handing out a death sentence for allegedly organising a jailbreak is a travesty of justice. The death penalty exposes the judicial system of Egypt under Abdel Fattah el Sisi’s rule and shows the real face of supporters of human rights and democracy in the Muslim world. In the past, many Egyptian governments carried out judicial killings of many Muslim Brotherhood members and in this recent case, too, it seems the same thing may happen. The execution will put the last nail in the coffin of Sisi’s illegal rule in Egypt and send the whole Middle East into turmoil. For the sake of peace and justice in Egypt and across the region, the verdict of the death penalty for Morsi must be withdrawn.
Fehmida Abdul Sattar
Published in The Express Tribune, May 23rd, 2015.
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