CAIRO: Domestic and international human rights groups denounced the military trial of 40 Muslim Brotherhood members, which entered its third session yesterday. Many of these groups called on President Hosni Mubarak to allow observers to attend the trials to ensure that it is carried out fairly. The third session of the trial, being held at the Supreme Military Court in Cairo, began yesterday following two previous sessions on July 15 and July 3. Independent observers from international and Egyptian legal and human rights groups, including Amnesty International, the Arab Commission for Human Rights, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, and Human Rights Watch, were barred from attending the previous sessions. Egyptian authorities have given no reasons for these prohibitions, and, when asked, the Ministry of Justice refused to comment on the trials or the recent calls for independent observers. The 40 defendants, some of whom are senior members of Egypt's opposition Muslim Brotherhood, face charges of terrorism and money-laundering that could lead to the death penalty. Only 17 of the 40 were acquitted after being tried by a Cairo criminal court on Jan. 29, 2007. President Mubarak then overrode these verdicts on Feb. 4 and transferred the cases to a military tribunal. Sarah Lee Whitson, the Middle East director of Human Rights Watch, said that this is a clear indication that the trials are no more than retaliatory. "Having failed to secure convictions from ordinary criminal courts, the government is now turning to a military tribunal to deliver the desired verdict. On Friday, Amnesty International, one of the world's leading human rights groups, wrote to President Mubarak urging him to allow the presence of independent observers at the trial. "We look to President Mubarak, as Egypt s highest authority, to open the doors to this important trial, said the organization's Secretary General Irene Khan on Friday. "He should clear the way for it to receive the scrutiny it deserves. Amnesty International, along with countless other human rights groups, bluntly condemned the use of military trials in the first place, arguing that they cannot guarantee defendants a fair trial. The groups also claim trying civilians in military courts violate international legal standards Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Egypt is a signatory, states that every person has the right to be tried by a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal. Similarly, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights holds that "state parties.shall have the duty to guarantee the independence of the courts. "In Egypt s military courts, judges are serving members of the armed forces and military courts cannot be seen as independent and impartial tribunals for civilians, Khan said. "Their use for highly-charged political cases - such as the current trial of leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood - suggests that the defendants may be denied a fair trial. In the past, independent observers have been allowed to attend Egyptian military trials, most recently in 2002 during another trial of Muslim Brotherhood members. Typically, the rulings passed down by the Supreme Military Court could not be appealed, but the Egyptian government recently amended the Code of Military Justice so that defendants will be able to appeal to a higher military court. However, according to Amnesty International's press release on the recent session, its concerns have not been "assuaged and it continues to express "opposition to the use of military courts to try civilians on the grounds that they cannot guarantee fair trials. Gamal Eid, the executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, said that his organization's opposition to the trials was so strong that they had not even demanded to send observers. "Military trials are simply unjust, he told Daily News Egypt. "They are retaliatory measures used by the government against the Muslim Brotherhood. They will be unjust no matter what. Eid said that he did not believe the presence of human rights or legal observers would ensure any justice to the military trials.
