An Egyptian court ruling sentencing 528 Muslim Brotherhood members to death has sparked a wave of angry reactions, with some rights activists denouncing the verdict as "a scandal" and the first of its kind in the country's modern history. The Al-Minya Criminal Court sentenced 528 Muslim Brotherhood members to death on charges of attacking a police station and killing an officer during riots that followed the dispersal of pro-MB sit-ins in Cairo in August last year. This is the largest set of death sentences handed to defendants in the modern history of Egypt. The court referred the defendants' papers to the Grand Mufti (the country's official authority for issuing religious edicts) to ratify the death sentence. It acquitted 17 others in the case. The Egyptian law stipulates that all death sentences be reviewed by the Mufti for ratification. The court will hold another session on 28 April after receiving the Mufti's opinion. Only 115 defendants of the 528 sentenced to death are held in custody, while the rest are at large. It was reported that families of the defendants broke down when the verdict was issued, but no violence took place. The Muslim Brotherhood deplored the verdict, saying that "such verdicts will only increase our determination to go forward until fair retribution is achieved". Lawyer Jamal Eid, director of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, described the court's verdict as "a disaster" and "a scandal" for Egypt. "Even if they are tried in absentia, you do not sentence 528 defendants to death in three days," Eid said, adding that the court proceeding was a "scandal". "This verdict is the first of its kind in the history of Egypt and will remain [in the nation's record] for good," lawyer Muhammad Zarie, who heads the Arab Penal Reform Organisation rights centre said. "We need to see if such numbers [of collective capital punishment] are found during the times of Hitler, [Iraq's] Saddam [Hussein] and Joseph Stalin," he added. The verdict has also triggered angry reactions on social media. The hashtag #Al-Minya_Farce was created in Arabic, with most comments criticizing the ruling on the basis that it was hasty and exaggerated. Some Twitter users decried the verdict as worse than Hitler's actions, while pro-Brotherhood users used it to prove that there could be no compromise; "either you kill or get killed". Nasser Amin, a member of the semi-governmental National Council for Human Rights, said on his official Twitter account: "This court ruling will be overturned as soon as the defendants demand a retrial," adding that the verdict was unprecedented. Activist Mahinur Al-Masri (@Mahienour) tweeted: "If we were competing with Hitler, we would not have thought of executing 529 human beings." Some online activists were different in circulating the numbers of those sentenced to death, with some saying they were 529 while other mentioned that they were 528 as reported by state TV. Some users slammed the ruling on the basis that it defies the concept of justice especially in light of the fact that much lighter rulings were issued in much bigger cases. Activist Khaled Hmed (@Khaeld_A_H) tweeted: "It is the biggest, quickest and silliest ruling ever." Activist Muhammad Sanad (@Mohsanad) said: "Stop the cheap extortion. A death sentence against 500 [people] two days after the start of their trial is nonsense, not justice. The only way to get out of this quagmire is to have justice for everyone." Activist Mona al-Tahawi (@monaeltahawy) tweeted: "This is outrageous. A shameful travesty of justice." For their part, pro-Brotherhood users promoted the idea of the necessity of ending the "coup"; otherwise people would be killed. Journalist and TV presenter Alaa Sadiq (@alaasadek) said on his Twitter account: "There is no choice anymore; those who revolt against the coup have to either kill or get killed and those who remain silent on the coup will get killed anyway." On his Facebook page, renowned Al-Jazeera TV presenter Ahmed Mansour said the verdict "confirms without doubt that Egypt has no judges, but rather it is ruled by a gang of criminal bloody killers". "Those who were not killed in Rabaa and Al-Nahdah [during the dispersal of the pro-Morsi sit-ins] will be killed through barbaric random court rulings. This confirms that if Egypt does not end the coup, it will sink in a sea of blood," he added. On its Facebook page, the Muslim Brotherhood's official website Ikhwanonline posted a statement by the pro-Brotherhood National Alliance for Supporting Legitimacy in which it called for mass rallies on 26 March in protest against the verdict. However, founder of the anti-Morsi Tamarrud (Rebellion) campaign Mahmoud Badr dissented with critics of the ruling on his Facebook page. "Whoever does not like the verdict needs to stand in front of the mirror and ask themselves: would that be your reaction if the same verdict was issued against Mubarak and 528 of his regime loyalists?" Badr wrote.
