AN Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced the country’s first ever freely elected president and Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi to death for alleged prison break during the 2011 uprising and killing of people when he was president. Death sentence also has been handed down to 120 others including top Muslim Brotherhood leaders to destroy the Islamists in Egypt. The Egyptian revolution which ousted former military dictator Husne Mubarak riding on the Arab spring is totally lost in the divisive politics of the secularists and the Islamists while the true heroes of the Egyptian democratic change have been totally beaten out of the scene. The Cairo court verdict is the latest in a series of mass death sentences on the Islamists since the military overthrew Morsi nearly two years ago. Analysts fear, the sentence may further destabilize the country and the news that suspected Islamic militants have gunned down three judges and their drivers in the northern Sinai Peninsula after the verdict apparently proved the fear to be true.
What is noticeable from the court verdicts is that judges have become an extension of the government. The judiciary has lost its independent position and with it also lost the respectability as judges. The courts are being used politically to eliminate political opposition to the government. This is highly shameful for the government and the judiciary. We condemn such mockery of Justice and demand President be released.
Morsi, an engineer by profession and taught in an American University rose to the presidency in 2012, ruled Egypt for only one year before the military backed government of Army Chief Abdul Fattah Sisi ousted him in July 2013.
Sisi later became the country’s president. The Arab spring that ended the 30 years dictatorial regime of Husne Mubarak saw the return of military to power again. Meanwhile, Egyptian courts are sentencing its democratic leaders to death while judges are acquitting or handing down light sentences to top officials of the Husne Mubarak regime. Mubarak himself was acquitted in November of charges of killing of hundreds of protesters during his last days in office and his three years sentence for corruption has been declared void showing that he has already served the same tenure under detention. “These sentences are yet another manifestation of the deeply troubling way the Egyptian judiciary has been used as a tool to settle political disagreements,” Reuter quoted an Egyptian academic as characterizing the role of the court in Egypt.
What is noticeable from the court verdicts is that judges have become an extension of the government. The judiciary has lost its independent position and with it also lost the respectability as judges. The courts are being used politically to eliminate political opposition to the government. This is highly shameful for the government and the judiciary. We condemn such mockery of Justice and demand President be released.
Morsi, an engineer by profession and taught in an American University rose to the presidency in 2012, ruled Egypt for only one year before the military backed government of Army Chief Abdul Fattah Sisi ousted him in July 2013.
Sisi later became the country’s president. The Arab spring that ended the 30 years dictatorial regime of Husne Mubarak saw the return of military to power again. Meanwhile, Egyptian courts are sentencing its democratic leaders to death while judges are acquitting or handing down light sentences to top officials of the Husne Mubarak regime. Mubarak himself was acquitted in November of charges of killing of hundreds of protesters during his last days in office and his three years sentence for corruption has been declared void showing that he has already served the same tenure under detention. “These sentences are yet another manifestation of the deeply troubling way the Egyptian judiciary has been used as a tool to settle political disagreements,” Reuter quoted an Egyptian academic as characterizing the role of the court in Egypt.
