A trend adopted by Egypt’s ruling military council to use military courts to try civilians has sparked uproar among protesters who forced president Hosni Mubarak’s ouster.
“There are thousands of youth held in military prisons simply for the reason that they were on the street at the wrong time,” Aly Sobhy, an actor who stood a 20-minute trial before a military court before being acquitted, told Reuters on Thursday, July 21.
Sobhy was detained in March with more than 160 other protesters in central Cairo but he was among those lucky enough to be acquitted after a campaign for their release. Others were not that fortunate.
At least 10,000 civilians have faced military trials since the uprising that toppled Mubarak, according to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other rights groups.
Charges vary from petty theft to violent crime.
Sentences can be tough. A shop-owner was sentenced to seven years in jail after a tribunal convicted him of stealing four pairs of shoes and a mobile phone card. He denied the charge.
The military says such trials are reserved for serious crimes and not to quash freedom of expression.
But activists and rights groups point to at least six incidents of random arrests to disperse demonstrations in the past few months.
“It’s a plan to dismantle the revolution. If they arrest some, others will be scared to go protest,” Sobhy said.
The trials have added to the anger at the army’s handling of the transition to civilian rule.
Demonstrators camping out in Cairo’s Tahrir Square say the army is taking too long to purge the system and end the corrupt practices of the Hosni Mubarak era.
The use of military courts to try civilians was a common practice under the ousted president.
But even under Mubarak, civilians subjected to military trials were often suspects in security cases, not common criminals.
Justice
Rights groups and activists say the wholesale use of military trials in the last few months calls into question the willingness of the military council, which took over after Mubarak, to transform Egypt into a democracy.
“The military has shown itself to be guilty of many of the same practices used under the Mubarak regime,” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at Brookings Doha Center.
“Being condemned to prison for protesting is the complete opposite of what people are calling for in Tahrir Square.”
Rights groups say the trials undermine the rule of law, noting that the catch-all “thuggery” charge has been used sweepingly.
“As long as military trials exist, they will find a way to suppress protests and threaten civilian liberties,” said Mona Seif of the No Military Trials for Civilians group.
“It makes no difference because most accusations are fabricated.”
Military courts, which often deal with groups of five to 30 defendants in a single trial lasting 20 to 40 minutes, have given out sentences ranging from six months to 25 years, on charges of breaking a curfew, possession of illegal weapons, theft or assault.
The army accepts the principle, however, that military courts should not try civilians, but says they are needed temporarily to handle Egypt’s security problems.
“No civilian should be tried in front of military courts,” General Mamdouh Shaheen of the ruling military council told reporters.
“But in this emergency situation … military courts took the place of civilian courts until they were able to work.”
But the pleas given by the army are not persuasive enough for the rights activists.
“Their insistence on defending military justice is a problem,” Adel Ramadan, a human rights lawyer with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said.
“This is a policy that the armed forces has adopted and it is not willing to give it up.”
Source: OnIslam & News Agencies
Comments