Amnesty International called for a retrial in ordinary courts for 22 demonstrators involved in violent protests in the Nile Delta industrial city of el-Mahalla on April 6-7. An Egyptian state security court jailed 22 demonstrators for between three and five years on Monday for taking part in deadly food riots in April. "We urge the Egyptian authorities to stop undermining the ordinary criminal justice system by using extraordinary emergency courts that entrench human rights abuses, including torture," Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa Deputy programme director, said in a statement. In a statement yesterday, Amnesty said Tareq Mohamed Abdel Hafiz, Ali Amin Abu Omar, Ahmed Kamel Mohamed and Karim Ahmed Al-Sayeed, aged between 19 and 38 years, told judges they had been tortured by State Security Investigation officers to force them to make confessions. The statement also warns that the emergency court failed to open an independent investigation and used the defendants' confessions to sentence them to three years in prison.
Amnesty adds that the persons who received sentences were among 49 people who were tried for their alleged involvement in el-Mahalla violent protests against the high costs of living. At least three demonstrators, including a student, were killed after being shot by security forces, while other scores were wounded in what was described as excessive use of force during demonstrations.
