Rights groups blast Egypt over death sentences for protesters

Rights groups have slammed the Egyptian government over the death sentences handed down to 188 anti-government protesters.

The death sentences are “fast losing Egypt’s judiciary whatever reputation for independence it once had,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa director, said in a statement released on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, a Cairo court sentenced to death 188 supporters of Mohamed Morsi, the president who was ousted by the army in July 2013.

The court said the accused stormed a police station in Kerdasa, a village on the outskirts of the capital city of Cairo, in mid-August 2013, killing 13 security forces.

Elsewhere in his statement, Whitson accused Egyptian judges of “convicting defendants en masse without regard for fair trial standards.”

Meanwhile, Hassiba Hadj Sahrouai, Amnesty’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, deplored Tuesday’s mass sentencing, warning that “justice is meted out based on a political whim.”

“It is quite telling that the sentencing…was handed down in the same week that the case against former president, Hosni Mubarak was dropped,” Sahrouai added.

On Saturday, an Egyptian court dismissed charges against ousted president, Hosni Mubarak, in connection with the killing of hundreds of protesters during the 2011 uprising that ended his decades-long rule. The court also acquitted Mubarak of a corruption charge.

Egypt has been the scene of anti-government protests with continuous clashes between security forces and supporters of Morsi since his ouster last year.