Beirut, May 7, 2020 – Amnesty International lambasted Egypt on Thursday for extending the pre-trial detention of over 1,600 detainees this week, calling for their unconditional release. The UK-based rights group said in a statement that the defendants were not present in court when the extensions were issued earlier this week by the Cairo Criminal Court, nor were their lawyers permitted to present a defence. “Egyptian authorities must immediately rescind the recent string of decisions to extend pre-trial detention,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty’s advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
According to Egyptian law, defendants can be held in pre-trial detention for up to two years, but authorities regularly prolong detentions indefinitely. Amnesty said the extensions came after the Cairo Appeals Court issued a decision on April 28 saying defendants could be released or have their detentions extended without being present in court.
Shady Habash, who died in prison last week after being jailed in 2018 for directing a music video critical of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, had exceeded the maximum pre-trial detention period by two months. “At a time where there are genuine concerns about the health and safety of prisoners amid the spread of COVID-19… Egyptian authorities should be releasing those arbitrarily detained,” Luther added. Authorities suspended family visits at prisons in early March due to the coronavirus pandemic and only recently resumed court hearings.
Fearing the spread of the virus in overcrowded prisons, human rights defenders have consistently called for the release of political prisoners and detainees awaiting trial since the start of the pandemic. Egypt has so far recorded over 7,000 virus infections and 450 fatalities. An estimated 60,000 detainees in Egypt are political prisoners, according to rights groups. These include secular activists, journalists, lawyers, academics and Islamists arrested in an ongoing crackdown against dissent since the military’s 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
