Increasing crackdowns on labor protests; Decrease in workers' strikes

Mada Masr

Labor Day 2017: Marked decrease in workers' strikes and protests, despite increasing inflation and austerity measures

What does the cooperation Sisi called for in his Labor Day address mean amid a marked deterioration in labor rights and freedoms?

May 1, 2017

Jano Charbel 

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi presided over the state’s official Labor Day commemoration on Sunday, organized by the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation, delivering a 10-minute televised address from the luxurious Al-Massa Hotel in Cairo.

“Egypt still expects much from its workers,” the president said, in one of several statements emphasizing workers’ cooperation with the state.



What Sisi did promise centered on increased foreign investment — a central tenet of the government’s economic structural adjustment whose efficacy is contested — saying that it would translate into increased employment opportunities for Egypt’s youth and decent living standards for the country’s workers.

This is in addition to promising to recommence operations at hundreds of factories that have remained closed since 2011, by allocating resources from the Tahya Masr Fund and to push a spate of labor-related legislation — including the unified labor law, trade union law, health insurance law, and social insurance law — through Parliament.

Nonetheless, there is a more stark reality for Egypt’s workers. Parliament is stacked against labor interests and the legislative body’s manpower committee is virtually controlled by the ETUF, whose leadership has not been elected since 2011 and is instead appointed by Manpower Minister Mohamed Saafan. Sisi and Parliament have extended the ETUF executive board’s terms of office several times, with the latest occurring in January 2017.

There have also been severe crackdowns against labor movements, with police and the Armed Forces jailing dozens of workers who participated in industrial action, and the prosecution referring them to trial. Simultaneously, the number of industrial protests has decreased to its lowest level in several years, falling from 1,117 strikes between May 2015 and April 2016, to 744 in the same period the following year.

To mark Labor Day, Amnesty International issued a statement on Sunday calling on the Egyptian state to end its “Relentless assault on rights of workers and trade unionists.” Human Rights Watch adopted a similar tone in a February statement, calling on Egyptian authorities to “Drop charges, change laws that restrict rights to organize and strike.”

The independent Egyptian initiative Democracy Meter issued its latest figures on Sunday regarding the number, location and causes of labor strikes and professional protests that occurred between May 2016 and April 2017.

According to the institute’s tally, at least 151 workers, unionists and professionals have been arrested, prosecuted or referred to trial over the course of the past 11 months. During this same period, 2,691 workers and professionals were dismissed from their jobs “for exercising their right to protest.”

Cairo was the site of the most labor action in Egypt over the past year, according to Democracy Meter’s figures, tallying 151 initiatives. After Cairo comes the Nile Delta governorates of Kafr al-Sheikh, with 68 initiatives, and Sharqiya, with 65.

The 26 Alexandrias Shipyard Company workers who are standing in a military trial plagued by numerous adjournments is one of the more prominent cases to have occurred in the past year. Other notable cases include the detention of six bus drivers from the Public Transport Authority in Cairo, 21 workers from the IFFCO Oils Company in Suez, scores of workers from the Egyptian Fertilizers Company and Egyptian Basic Industries Company in Suez, and 16 workers from Telecom Egypt Company.

While the state’s austerity measures have worsened labor and living conditions, workers efforts to push back have been curtailed, according to Mohamed Awwad, the lawyer for the 26 Alexandria Shipyard Company workers.

“Any worker who attempts to publicly demand their rights these days usually thinks twice before doing so, as the state will likely respond to peaceful protest actions with forceful and oppressive measures,” he says.

Awwad says that 19 of the 26 shipyard workers who are standing military trial have been persuaded to tender their resignations in exchange for assurances that they would not be jailed pending their military trial. Since the forced dispersal of the labor protest at the Defense Ministry-owned shipyard in May 2016, some 1,000 workers of a 2,300-person workforce have not been allowed back to work and are earning only half of their basic wages, according to the lawyer.

The string of police crackdowns on labor strikes in the Suez Governorate is symbolic, according to Ahmed Bakr, the secretary general of the Independent Union of Workers at the IFFCO Oils Company. “[The crackdown] aims to send a message to workers, that your protests or strikes will be deemed illegal and the state will only uphold the rights of big businessmen and investors.”

Bakr and all eight other members of the Independent Union of Workers at the IFFCO Oils Company, in addition to 12 other workers, stood trial in the Suez Governorate in January 2017. They have since been acquitted of charges of instigating a strike and obstructing production. However, the prosecution appealed the court’s decision, a second trial was held March before the Suez Appeals Court, which also opted for an acquittal.

“These labor rights (right to strike, and organize) are supposed to be safeguarded in the Egyptian Constitution. However, the reality in Egypt is quite different,” says Seif, the son of jailed PTA bus driver and independent unionist Mohamed Abdel Khaleq.

Abdel Khaleq and his coworker Ayman Abdel Tawwab were held in Tora for nearly seven months for planning a strike in September 2016, before being granted conditional release in March. Per the terms of his release, Abdel Khaleq must submit himself to Cairo’s Sharabiya Police Station two days a week, for nearly four hours at a time. The PTA workers still face the possibility of trial.

Egypt’s independent trade unions are organizing their own Labor Day conference, which is scheduled for the evening of May 1 at the headquarters of the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS) in Cairo. The event is being held under the title “Social Justice and Union Freedoms.”

Since July 2013, there have not been any Labor Day rallies, marches or public protests in Egypt.

Egypt: Relentless assault on rights of workers & unionists

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Egypt: Relentless assault on rights of workers and trade unionists

April 30, 2017

Dozens of workers and trade unionists in Egypt have faced arrest, detention, dismissal from work or trials in military courts, merely for exercising their freedom of expression, association and assembly, Amnesty International said in a statement published to mark Labour Day on 1 May.

Amid rising economic hardship in Egypt and a wave labour strikes in the private and public sector, as well as military-owned industries, the government is using a series of disciplinary measures and criminal sanctions to crack down on workers and trade unionists. It is also seeking to amend existing laws to further restrict labour rights.

“The Egyptian authorities have waged a punitive campaign against workers and trade unionists to deter and punish them from mobilizing or going on strike. Demanding your labour rights and expressing your grievances should not be a criminal offense.

The right to strike and peaceful assembly are enshrined, both, in Egypt’s Constitution and international human rights law. Egyptian authorities must stop punishing people for exercising and demanding their rights,” said Najia Bounaim, Campaigns Director for North Africa at Amnesty International.

Many workers have been arrested simply for taking part in a strike or a peaceful protest. Some have been held in pre-trial detention for prolonged periods or subject to restrictive probation measures. Just last week, 16 workers from the Telecom Egypt Company in Cairo and Giza were arrested for participating in a peaceful demonstration under Egypt’s anti-protest law. They were released after solidarity protests.

In some cases disciplinary measures including pay cuts, suspension or dismissal from work are used to punish workers. At the state-run Zagazig University Hospital, 12 nurses were suspended after participating in a week-long strike in February 2017 during which the hospital provided only emergency services.

Workers in military-owned factories face additional risks as they can be subject to unfair trials at military courts,. Twenty five workers from the military-run Alexandria Shipyard Company are currently on trial before a military court. They have been charged with “inciting workers to strike,” and could face up to two years in prison.

The authorities have also interfered with the functioning of independent workers unions, by targeting members with disciplinary action and by hampering their activities. The government has also proposed amendments to the Labour Law and Trade Unions Law that will make organizing strikes even more difficult and will make it virtually impossible to establish or join an independent trade union.


*For more information about the labour rights situation in Egypt see the full statement here

Drop Charges; Change Laws that Restrict Right to Organize & Strike

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Egypt: Workers Charged over Protests

Drop Charges; Change Laws that Restrict Right to Organize, Strike

February 9, 2017

Egyptian prosecutors should drop all charges against at least 26 workers who were arrested and charged in recent months in connection with peaceful strikes and protests, Human Rights Watch said today. The parliament should also revise a new trade unions draft law to fully legalize independent unions and amend penal code provisions that criminalize the right to organize and strike.

 

Since May 2016, police have arrested scores of striking workers from various industries. Most were later released, but prosecutors have referred dozens for trial, including some before a military court.
“Arresting workers for striking is another example of how Egyptian authorities are determined to stifle all space for peaceful mobilization,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

In January 2017, prosecutors charged 19 striking workers at an oil products factory in Suez with inciting a strike and halting production, though all were acquitted in a trial later that month. In December 2016, security forces arrested at least 55 striking workers at the Egyptian Fertilizers Company, and prosecutors summoned eight for investigation.

On September 26, Kamal Abbas, a member of the government-sponsored National Council for Human Rights and head of the independent Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services (CTUWS), wrote to the Interior Ministry regarding the National Security Agency’s “disappearance” of six workers from the Public Transport Authority following raids on their homes two days earlier.

On September 28, following a news conference by families of the missing workers, the six workers appeared before prosecutors who accused them of belonging to an unidentified banned group.

In May, military prosecutors referred 26 Alexandria Shipyard Company workers to a military court on charges of inciting strikes.

The January strike in Suez followed a sit-in at the privately owned IFFCO oil products factory in the last week of December seeking an equal distribution of bonuses between workers and supervisors. The workers decided to strike after Interior Ministry officers arrested two members of the IFFCO Independent Workers’ Union who had been participating in the sit-in, according to a workers’ statement published in local newspapers.

The CTUWS said that National Security officers demanded that union leaders end the strike and then police arrested 13 striking workers on January 2. Prosecutors summoned another 10 for questioning on the same day and referred 19 to a minor offenses court on charges of inciting a strike, halting production, and sabotaging factory properties.

Though the court acquitted the workers, the factory administration can appeal the decision. Activists told Human Rights Watch that, according to workers, 26 people were later fired, including the 19 who were acquitted.

Union leaders at the IFFCO factory demanded a larger share of bonuses after the prices of everyday goods in Egypt rose dramatically when the government floated the Egyptian pound in early November, a requirement for a US$12 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan package. Since then, the pound has lost more than 100 percent of its value, and the IMF has estimated that inflation will rise to 18 percent.

Egyptian authorities greatly restrict the ability of workers to mobilize independently, and the penal code criminalizes strikes and workplace sit-ins in articles 124 and 125, with sentences of up to two years, despite several administrative court rulings that have upheld the right to strike.

Kamal Abbas, the CTUWS leader, told Human Rights Watch that the government-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) sent a letter to the administration of the Suez oil products factory saying that the independent workers’ union, which had signed two collective bargaining agreements with administrators in 2012 and 2015, was illegal. The IFFCO Independent Workers’ Union could be shut down as a result.

The government has never legalized the independent labor unions that proliferated after the 2011 uprising, while officially recognized unions have not held elections for 11 years, and successive governments have appointed union leaders, most recently in January.

In June, an administrative court sent the current, restrictive 1976 law on unions for review, stating that “the [ETUF] was not capable of expressing workers’ grievances and hopes whether before the state or business owners.” To Human Rights Watch’s knowledge, the Supreme Constitutional Court has yet to take up the case.

In April 2016, Human Rights Watch called on the Egyptian authorities to legalize independent unions and criticized a draft law that would dissolve independent unions and restrict workers’ rights. The cabinet approved a modified draft in July and sent it to parliament on January 25. The current draft would not recognize existing independent unions and would impose prison sentences for establishing unions that do not follow the new law.

The sharp devaluation of the Egyptian pound also led to strikes in November and December at two privately owned fertilizer companies in the Suez governorate, Egyptian Fertilizers Company and the Egyptian Basic Industries Corporation, the independent news website Mada Masr reported.

Police dawn raids ended both sit-ins, and police rounded up at least 55 workers, one worker participating in the sit-in told Human Rights Watch. Central Security Force riot police put the arrested workers inside vans and dropped them in a deserted area three hours later, the worker said.

Prosecutors detained two for several weeks before releasing them on bail, and the factory administration dismissed six with no explanation, the worker said. The two factories have no unions.

A representative for the Egyptian Fertilizers Company told Human Rights Watch that police tried for 10 days to convince workers occupying control rooms to leave before “very peacefully” ending the sit-in.

The workers returned to work the following morning. He said that halting production was a crime and acknowledged that prosecutors summoned several workers, but said the administration had not made complaints against them during the investigations. Workers denied the administration’s allegations that they stopped the production or occupied the control room.

Dawn raids also led to the arrest of six Public Transport Authority workers from their homes in Cairo on September 24, ahead of a planned strike demanding bonuses. Authorities did not acknowledge their whereabouts for four days, CTUWS leader Kamal Abbas told Human Rights Watch, adding that lawyers had not been allowed to obtain a copy of prosecution documents as required by law.

Prosecutors accused the six of joining a banned group that prosecutors did not identify, inciting strikes, and disturbing public order, pro-government news websites reported. Two of the workers remain in pretrial detention, while authorities released four pending investigation.

Egypt’s military has also suppressed workers’ actions. In Alexandria, 26 workers of the military-owned Alexandria Shipyard Company have been on trial before a military court since June 21, 2016. A report by the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) said the workers had organized a brief protest inside the company’s premises on May 23 and 24, to demand bonuses, promotions, and safety equipment and tried to negotiate with General Abd al-Hamid Essmat, the company’s executive.

On May 25, military prosecutors ordered 13 workers held pending investigation. One, a woman, was released on bail. Thirteen others were arrested weeks later. Fatma Ramadan, the head of an independent union and a workers’ rights researcher, told Human Rights Watch that military prosecutors relied entirely on a memo from the company to charge the workers with inciting strikes and abstaining from work. Human Rights Watch was not able to review the memo. After several days, the company allowed 1,100 of 2,800 workers to return, the ECESR said.

The shipyard administration told workers they would be released if they resigned, said Abbas and an ECESR lawyer. All the prosecuted workers resigned and were released on bail in groups in October, November, and December, but they still face trial.

Military prosecutors referred the striking workers to military court under the Military Code of Justice, which covers civilian workers in military-owned institutions and does not establish any workers’ rights. The current draft unions law would not change this.

Egypt’s constitution grants freedom of association and the right to strike. Egypt is a state party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, article 8 of which establishes the right to strike, as well as the right to form and join trade unions and national and international confederations. Egypt is also a member of the International Labour Organization and has ratified its eight fundamental conventions.

Parliament should ensure that the draft union law under consideration meets Egypt’s obligations under international human rights law by allowing free and fair union elections and ensuring straightforward legalization procedures for all existing independent unions. Civilian workers in military institutions should be allowed association rights and should never be tried before military courts.

Human Rights Watch wrote to IFFCO, the Public Transport Authority, and the Alexandria Shipyard Company, regarding the incidents but received no responses.

“Instead of arresting and prosecuting workers, the government should amend its laws to guarantee workers’ rights to effective bargaining and mobilization which are essential to effective economic reform,” Stork said.
 

*Photo courtesy of Reuters

Military court releases 5 jailed workers from Alexandria Shipyard on bail - following submission of resignations

Mada Masr
5 jailed Alexandria Shipyard workers released on bail, as trial adjourned to November 15

Tuesday October 18, 2016

Jano Charbel

A military court delayed the issuing of a verdict in the trial of 26 Alexandria Shipyard Company workers on Tuesday for the fifth time, adjourning court proceedings until November 15. Five of the workers standing trial have been released on bail, after having submitted their resignations from the company.

In the case, which has been ongoing since June 18, the military prosecutor charged workers with instigating strikes and obstructing operations at the company, which has been owned by the Defense Ministry since 2007.

Under Article 124 of Egypt’s Penal Code, Alexandria Military Court can sentence civil servants found to be deliberately refraining from performing their duties at work to three months to a year in prison and/or a fine of up to LE500.

Defense lawyer Mohamed Awwad told Mada Masr that the five workers released on bail submitted their resignation letters three weeks ago, while in detention, after a military official affiliated with the Alexandria Shipyard Company advised workers’ families that legal charges might be dismissed upon receipt of their resignation.

Several other detained workers are currently in the process of tendering their resignations in an attempt to secure their release on bail or the dismissal of charges.

The workers were arrested in connection to a sit-in they staged at the Alexandria Shipyard Company on May 22 and 23 to demand salaries aligned with the national minimum wage (LE1,200 per month,) overdue profit-shares, annual bonuses, health insurance coverage and the dismissal of the company’s chief administrator, as well as the re-operation of the shipyard’s stalled production lines. Despite the charges leveled against them, there was never a formal work stoppage.

Of the 26 shipyard workers formally referred to military trial, 14 have been detained since May 24 pending trial, while one was released on bail and 11 others have not turned themselves into police custody. After Tuesday’s release, the total number of defendants released on bail increased to six.

Alexandria Shipyard Company administration has imposed a lockout since May 24, one day after the sit-in. Awwad told Mada Masr that approximately 1,000 workers of the total workforce of 2,300 have been allowed back on the company’s premises in recent weeks.

The defense lawyer added that the jailed workers have only been paid half of their basic wages in the five months they have been detained, while over 1,000 workers still barred from entering the shipyard have only been paid basic wages without regular bonuses. Those that have resumed work are receiving their full salaries.

“This is an exceptional trial against civilian workers,” said Awwad. “Many of them were employed at the company before it came under the administration of the Ministry of Defense.”

“If they were producing military hardware or weaponry, they could be referred to military trial, according to the provisions of the military justice law.”

However, the shipyard workers are only involved in the construction of ship frames, along with the maintenance and servicing of maritime vessels.

“This is neither a military production site, nor a munitions factory,” Awwad stated.

Article 204 of the 2014 Constitution prohibits the prosecution of civilians in military courts, except under mitigating circumstances.

“Civilians shall not stand trial before military courts except for crimes that constitute a direct assault on military installations, the Armed Forces, its camps or all else under their authority … including military factories,” Egypt’s Constitution states.

Over the past few months, hundreds of labor activists, trade unionists and human rights workers have campaigned for the rights of the detained shipyard workers.

Several solidarity conferences have been organized to help raise awareness regarding the plight of the workers and their families, while statements of support, and petitions in Egypt and abroad have circulated to call for their release and the dismissal of all charges.

In a televised interview earlier this month, Alexandria’s Member of Parliament Haitham al-Hariri addressed the issue.

“There are 26 workers from the Alexandria Shipyard Company who have been jailed and subjected to injustice,” he said, adding that the workers’ families are struggling to acquire food and pay for basic needs. “Egypt won’t be able to stand on its feet again, except with justice.”

MP Khaled Shaaban also issued a statement, denouncing the prosecutor’s decision to refer the civilian workers to military trial as “unconstitutional.”



*Photo courtesy of the Egyptian Center for Economic & Social Rights

Outpouring of solidarity with civilian workers from Alexandria Shipyard on military trial

Mada Masr

Petitions support Alexandria shipyard workers standing military trial

August 2, 2016

Jano Charbel 

More than 500 individuals and civil society groups signed petitions in solidarity with 26 civilian workers from Alexandria Shipyard Company who are currently standing trial before a military court.

The case has been ongoing since June 18. The workers, half of whom are being tried in absentia, face charges of instigating strikes and obstructing operations at the company. They deny the charges, claiming they weren’t involved in any strike action but staged a sit-in that did not halt production.

Military prosecutors have charged the workers with violating Article 124 of Egypt’s Penal Code, which stipulates penalties of three months to one year imprisonment and/or fines of up to LE500 for civil servants who deliberately refrain from performing their duties at work.

A verdict in the ongoing case was due to be issued on August 2, but was postponed to August 16.

During the sit-in, staged on May 22 and 23, workers demanded the payment of the national minimum wage (LE1,200 per month), overdue profit-shares, annual Ramadan bonuses, health insurance coverage and the dismissal of the company’s chief administrator, as well as the re-operation of the shipyard’s stalled production lines.

Despite the non-violent nature of their sit-in, military police were deployed to the Shipyard Company, where security forces have prevented nearly 2,500 shipyard workers from entering the premises since May 24, bringing almost all production to a halt.

Military conscripts were deployed to temporarily replace some of the civilian workers at the company, according to lawyer Mohamed Awad, who added that the lockdown is still being enforced despite promises the company would be operational again by August 1.

The company’s nearly 2,500 excluded workers, who are not on trial, have been paid their basic wages, but not the bonuses that usually supplement their incomes, as they didn’t work during the 70-day lockdown, according to Awad. These wages amount to less than the minimum wage.

One online petition, signed by over 330 individuals, calls on Egyptian authorities to end the use of military trials to punish civilian workers for standing up for their rights. The petition adds that Alexandria Military Court should “immediately halt this illegal persecution.”

Another email-based petition, circulated by labor activists, was signed by over 200 people and endorsed by 13 political groups. 

The petition cites Article 204 of Egypt’s 2014 Constitution, which stipulates, “Civilians shall not stand trial before military courts except for crimes that constitute a direct assault on military institutions, the Armed Forces, its camps or any other body under its jurisdiction… including military factories.”

The 13 groups who signed the petition include: The Bread and Freedom Party, the Karama Party, the Strong Egypt Party, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, the National Partnership Current, the Popular Current, the Liberties Committee of the Journalists Syndicate, the Revolutionary Socialists, Youth for Justice and Freedom, the April 6 Youth Movement’s Democratic Front, Toward a Just Labor Law campaign, Workers' Struggle Current, and the Independent General Union for Tourism Workers.

“Neither workers nor other civilians should stand trial before military courts, or any other form of exceptional courts,” the petition stated.

These petitions were preceded by a solidarity conference in Cairo on June 27, titled: Against Military Trials of Workers, which demanded that all charges be dropped and the case be referred to a civilian court.

Some parliamentarians also issued their own statements criticizing the trial, the latest in a number of military trials against civilian workers.

“Egypt is a state, not a military barracks,” Member of Parliament Haitham al-Hariry says, asserting that the trial “aims to intimidate and threaten workers,” and “Civilians should not stand trial before military courts, even if they are working under military administration.”

Officials from the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) have, however, issued statements supporting the military trial.

ETUF Vice President, Magdy al-Badawy told media outlets in late July that the trial of civilian workers before a military court is regular procedure. Badawy added that, since the company is administered by the Defense Ministry, its workers should be subject to the provisions of military laws.

Alexandria Shipyard Company was established as a state-owned enterprise in the 1960s, and has been owned and operated by Egypt’s Defense Ministry since 2007.

At least 18,000 civilians have stood trial before military tribunals since the popular uprising of January 25, 2011, according to rights activists.

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*Alexandria Shipyard workers to remain in jail until 18 September

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*Photo courtesy of ECESR.org

Solidarity! Demand end of military trial of 26 workers from Alexandria Shipyard Co.

Mada Masr
Solidarity conference demands end to military trial of 26 Alexandria Shipyard workers

Monday, June 27, 2016

Jano Charbel

A conference in solidarity with 26 workers from the Alexandria Shipyard Company who are standing military trial on charges of inciting strikes was held in Cairo on Monday.

A host of solidarity statements was also issued demanding that all charges be dropped against the workers, or that the case be referred to a civilian court.

The “Against Military Trials of Workers” conference was held at the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) headquarters. It was attended by several political activists, along with dozens of representatives of at least 12 parties, labor groups and rights organizations.

Speaking at the conference, lawyer Osama al-Mahdy from the No Military Trials group called for the immediate release of the workers. Mahdy pointed out that since 2011, at least 18,000 civilians have stood trial before military tribunals, when they should have been referred to the civilian judicial system instead.

“The referral of all issues in the country to the Armed Forces’ command will not help to build a modern civil state,” Khaled Dawoud, spokesperson for the Dostour Party, declared at the conference.

The 26 workers took part in a peaceful sit-in along with most of their 2,500 coworkers on May 22 and 23 to demand the national minimum wage of LE1,200 per month, overdue profit shares, their annual Ramadan bonuses and health insurance, along with the re-operation of stalled production lines.

Originally established as a civilian facility several decades ago, the Alexandria Shipyard Company was taken over by the Ministry of Defense in 2007.

The trial began on June 18, and another hearing was held at the Alexandria Military Court on Monday. The next hearing is scheduled for Saturday, July 2, defense lawyer Mohamed Awad of ECESR told Mada Masr.

The workers are accused of striking and inciting strikes, although they insist that they did not partake in any form of work stoppage, said Awad. Rather, work ground to a halt because Alexandria Shipyard administrators imposed a lockout on their civilian workforce starting on May 24, the defendants claim.

Due to the lockout, the Alexandria Shipyard Company is currently operating at only around 10 percent of capacity, the lawyer said.

Awad added that “some conscripts have recently been brought in to undertake the civilian workers’ jobs.”

Of the 26 workers on trial, 15 have handed themselves in and have been attending the military court’s sessions in Alexandria, one of whom has been released on bail, according to Awad. The remaining 11 workers have not yet handed themselves in.

Awad told Mada Masr that the shipyard workers are hesitant to speak openly or to accept interviews with the media as they fear for their livelihoods in light of the ongoing lockout and the military trial of their colleagues.

Previous solidarity statements were issued by the Alexandria-based member of Parliament Haitham al-Hariry, who argued, “Civilians should not stand trial before military courts, even if they are working under military administration.”

He claimed that the trial “aims to intimidate and threaten workers," concluding, “Egypt is a state, not a military barracks.”

Monday's solidarity conference was attended by representatives of the Strong Egypt Party, the Dostour Party, the Revolutionary Socialists, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, the Bread and Freedom Party, the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, the Egyptian Center for Educational Rights, the Toward a Just Labor Law campaign, the No Military Trials campaign and the ECESR.


*Photos courtesy of the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, and Omaldonia.com, respectively

Egypt's history of military trials against civilian workers

Mada Masr
The 4 times in Egyptian history civilian workers were tried by military courts

Monday, June 20, 2016

Jano Charbel

Since the army-led takeover of the Egyptian state in July 1952, there have been four historic cases in which military courts tried civilian workers for protesting in demand of basic labor rights. Most recently, on Saturday a military trial began of 26 Alexandria Shipyard Company employees on charges of instigating strikes.

These four trials exemplify the extent of the military judiciary’s far-reaching arm over civilian workers, regardless of whether they are employed by army-owned industries or civilian facilities. In these cases, military tribunals have issued sentences including incarceration, suspended prison sentences and even the historic execution of two textile workers from the Nile Delta town of Kafr al-Dawwar in September 1952.

While that execution, which constituted the harshest verdict against civilian workers, happened nearly 64 years ago, the other three trials have taken place over the past six years alone, including cases against workers at the Helwan Engineering Industries Company in 2010, the Petrojet Company in 2011 and the Alexandria Shipyard Company in 2016.

ALEXANDRIA SHIPYARD COMPANY

The Alexandria Military Court held its first hearing in the trial of 26 civilian workers from the Alexandria Shipyard Company on June 18, and the defendants are due to return to court on June 21 on charges of instigating strikes and obstructing production and operations. The Alexandria Shipyard was originally established as a state-owned facility in the 1970s, but the Defense Ministry took it over in 2007.

The shipyard workers staged a sit-in late last month to demand payment of the national monthly minimum wage of LE1,200 per month, overdue profit-shares, annual Ramadan bonuses and health insurance coverage, along with the dismissal of the company’s chief administrator and the re-operation of the shipyard’s stalled production lines.

As of May 26, 13 of the workers were jailed, while the remaining 13 had not yet handed themselves in.

Military prosecutors are charging the protesters with violating Article 124 of Egypt’s Penal Code, which stipulates penalties of three months to one year in prison and/or fines of up to LE500 for civil servants who deliberately refrain from performing their duties at work.

According to their lawyer, Mohamed Awad of the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR), the defendants will have the right to appeal the final verdict.

While a majority of the nearly 2,500 shipyard employees had conducted a sit-in at the Port of Alexandria on May 22 and 23, “they did not engage in any form of strike action, not even a partial strike or a slowdown” which could have obstructed or negatively affected operations, claims Awad.

Instead, work at the shipyard ground to a complete halt as a result of a lockout imposed by company authorities and military police on May 24, which remains in effect to this day, Awad says. “If anybody is obstructing the company’s operations, it is the company’s administration, which continues to lockout its workers,” he argues.

Article 204 of the 2014 Constitution stipulates that “civilians shall not stand trial before military courts except for crimes that constitute a direct assault on military installations, the Armed Forces, its camps or all else under their authority … including military factories.”

Awad points out that given this constitutional provision, the shipyard workers do not belong in military court, as their non-violent actions did not constitute a work stoppage or a direct assault on the military’s interests.

The authorities are sending “a warning to all other companies [owned by the military] and their workers: ‘We can take similar actions against you if you think of protesting, or organizing for your demands’,” Awad claims.

“The rest of the shipyard workers are fearful,” the lawyer continues. “Many feel their livelihoods may be threatened, or that they may be referred to military trial for any future form of protest.”

 

PETROJET

Military police arrested five civilian workers from the state-managed Petrojet Company outside the Petroleum Ministry on June 1, 2011 when they staged a sizeable sit-in to demand full-time contracts and the reinstatement of fired coworkers.

On June 6, the five protesters became the first workers to stand military trial on charges of violating a law criminalizing labor strikes and sit-ins that was issued by the interim-ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in April 2011, shortly after former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power.

SCAF’s decree, which was drafted to be enforced during a state of emergency, stipulates penalties of up to one year in prison and fines of up to LE500,000 for strikes or other actions that obstruct production or operations at either private or public-sector companies. The decree makes no mention referring civilians to military tribunals.

Operating under the general of authority of the Petroleum Ministry, Petrojet is a civilian facility with a civilian workforce, but its employees stood trial before the Nasr City Military Court.

ECESR lawyers who were involved in the defense say that military prosecutors charged the five workers with violating the SCAF decree, but also accused them of violating the Military Justice Code, which facilitated the extraordinary referral to military court.

Legally, however, the military court had no jurisdiction to try the workers, the ECESR lawyers claim.
Nonetheless, on June 29, 2011 the court issued a suspended one-year prison sentence for each of the protesters.

The sentences could be enforced if judicial authorities find the defendants have committed similar infractions since the verdict was issued, the lawyers explain. Further penalties could also be added to the initial sentence if the defendants are found to be repeat offenders.

 

HELWAN ENGINEERING

In August 2010, a military court tried eight civilian workers from the army-owned Helwan Engineering Industries Company after they protested for improved workplace safety standards.

On August 3, hundreds of workers had demonstrated against repeated industrial accidents at the military factory, including the explosion of a gas cylinder that killed one worker and injured six others.

Military prosecutors jailed the protesting civilian workers and charged them with instigating strikes, obstructing production, industrial sabotage, assaulting a company official and disclosing military secrets.

The Nasr City Military Court held the first hearing on August 22. After a trial that lasted only eight days, on August 30 the court found five of the defendants guilty of damaging factory equipment, sentencing them to suspended prison sentences ranging from six months to a year and fining them LE1,000 each. The three other workers were found innocent of all charges. The court also acquitted all eight workers of the charges of striking and assaulting the factory manager.

Amnesty International condemned the trial, calling on Egypt to refrain from trying civilian workers before military tribunals. Instead, the “Egyptian authorities should do their utmost to improve working conditions and safety in the workplace," Amnesty argued.

 

KAFR AL-DAWWAR                              

Egypt’s first military trial of civilian workers took place just three weeks after the army’s July 23, 1952 revolution. The ruling Free Officers movement deployed army units and riot police forces to quell protests staged by textile workers in Kafr al-Dawwar on August 13 of that year.

Workers at the privately owned Misr Spinning and Weaving Company were engaged in partial strike actions to demand the dismissal of the company’s manager, the establishment of a local trade union and the reinstatement of fired coworkers.

Along with labor unrest within company, street protests and riots erupted outside the factory’s gates, along with acts of arson.

Media reports from the time indicate that an exchange of gunfire from disputed locations outside the textile company resulted in seven fatalities — including three members of the security forces and four local residents and workers — along with dozens of injuries.

Troops arrested 567 workers from the company, and military prosecutors charged 29 people with instigating strikes and rioting.

The first hearing was held on August 15. In just three days, the military tribunal issued its verdict. Of the 29 defendants, 13 were found guilty — 11 were sentenced to lengthy terms in prison, while Mostafa Khamis and Mohamed al-Baqari were sentenced to hang with no right of appeal, and very little in terms of the right to legal defense beyond a state-appointed defense lawyer.

In September, they were executed.

According to historians Joel Beinin and Zachary Lockman in their book, Workers on the Nile, Khamis’s last words before he was hung on September 7, 1952 were, “I am wronged. I want a retrial.”




*Photos courtesy of Tahrir News and Associated Press respectively

Egypt: 7,400 Civilians Tried in Military Courts Since 2014

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Egypt: 7,400 Civilians Tried In Military Courts

Torture, Disappearances Used to Elicit Confessions

April 13, 2016

 

Military courts have tried at least 7,420 Egyptian civilians since October 2014, when President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi decreed a major new law that expanded military court jurisdiction.

A list of civilians tried in military courts, provided by the Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms, an independent legal and human rights group, documents for the first time the extent to which al-Sisi’s administration has used the military justice system to expedite its harsh crackdown on opponents.

Most defendants were sentenced after mass trials that violate fundamental due process rights, and some courts relied on confessions extracted under torture, relatives of the defendants said.

“Apparently unsatisfied with tens of thousands already detained and speedy mass trials that discarded due process in the name of national security, al-Sisi essentially gave free rein to military prosecutors,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East and North Africa director. “He has handed back to the military judiciary the powerful role it enjoyed in the months after Egypt’s uprising, when the nation was governed by a council of generals.”

The list provided to Human Rights Watch documented 324 cases, identifying defendants by name, sex, home governorate, and case number, and in many cases by profession and age. The largest case involved 327 defendants.

The list did not describe the charges in each case. But a Human Rights Watch survey of about 50 Egyptian media reports since October 2014, describing the referrals of thousands of people for military trials, indicates that most of those charged in military courts were transferred there because the broad provisions of al-Sisi’s law essentially put all public property under military jurisdiction, not because they committed crimes involving the armed forces.

The media reports indicated that a large number were accused of participating in illegal or violent protests, as well as membership in or support for the Muslim Brotherhood. Since July 2013, when the military removed Mohamed Morsy, Egypt’s first freely elected president and a former Brotherhood member, Egyptian judges have sentenced thousands of members of the group.

These military trials have swept up at least 86 children, as well as students, professors, and activists, including individuals who were forcibly disappeared and allegedly tortured. Military courts have handed down 21 death sentences since October 2014, though a lawyer with the Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms said that none have yet been approved by the Supreme Military Court of Appeals.

In May 2015, six men were hanged following verdicts handed down by a military court in August 2014, despite evidence that some had been in detention at the time of their alleged crimes.

Human Rights Watch interviewed relatives of seven people, including four men sentenced to death and one child, who were all tried in military courts in the past year. Six told their families that agents of the Interior Ministry’s National Security branch tortured or beat them to elicit confessions, including four who were tortured with electric shocks. Five said they were forcibly disappeared by the authorities for weeks or months. In all but one case, their convictions were based in large part on the confessions, according to their relatives and case files.

In one case, following a mass trial of 27 defendants, a military court sentenced Seif al-Islam Osama, who was 15 when arrested, to three years in a juvenile detention facility for allegedly participating in an illegal protest, despite defense lawyers’ arguments that he was too young to face military trial and had not actually been a participant.

In another case, a high school student arrested in the street outside his school told his mother that National Security agents stripped him, walked on him, extinguished cigarettes on his skin, and gave him electric shocks on various parts of his body, including his genitals, to make him confess to belonging to a “terrorist cell” that planted explosives and burned electricity stations. A military court sentenced him to three years in prison.

Thousands of civilians were retroactively referred to military trials for crimes they allegedly committed before al-Sisi imposed the law. Hundreds, and possibly thousands, of the civilians referred for military trial faced charges that stemmed from the violent unrest that broke out in mid-2013 after the military removed Morsy from power.

The list identified 1,468 defendants from Minya governorate – the most from any one governorate – where violent mobs attacked churches and Christian-owned homes and businesses following Morsy’s removal and the subsequent mass killing of Morsy’s supporters by security forces in August 2013.

The media reports reviewed by Human Rights Watch corroborated the retroactive referral of hundreds of Minya residents to military trials for participating in the 2013 violence.

Another military trial involves Sohaib Sa’ad, a 22-year-old man arrested on a Cairo street on June 1, 2015, as he walked with friends. The authorities forcibly disappeared Sa’ad for four weeks, during which time he alleged he was tortured. Sa’ad, who used to film protests and sell the footage to news media, had been charged in a prominent case targeting three journalists from Al Jazeera and was detained from January 2, 2014, until February 12, 2015, when he was released pending retrial.

On July 10, 2015, almost two weeks after he reappeared, the Defense Ministry published a video on YouTube announcing the arrest of Sa’ad and others in what it said was “one of the most dangerous terrorist cells belonging to a special operations unit of the terrorist Brotherhood organization.” The video showed Sa’ad and several others confessing their alleged roles in the group. The court hearing the Al Jazeera case sentenced Sa’ad and the other defendants to three years in August 2015, and on April 3, 2016, the military court hearing the terrorism case against Sa’ad and 27 other defendants postponed its verdict to April 24.

Such mass trials, in both Egypt’s regular and military judiciaries, have violated due process guarantees and failed to establish individual guilt. In 2014, a criminal court judge issued 220 death sentences against defendants accused in mass trials of participating in Minya’s 2013 violence. In February 2016, a military court mistakenly handed down a life sentence to a 3-year-old child following a mass trial against 116 protesters from Fayoum governorate, whose case was transferred to a military court under al-Sisi’s law.

Egypt’s military courts are administered by the Defense Ministry. The judges are serving military officers. Military court proceedings typically do not protect basic due process rights or satisfy the requirements of independence and impartiality of courts of law. Children can fall under the jurisdiction of military courts, which Human Rights Watch opposes under any circumstances.

The use of military courts to try civilians violates international law, including the 1981 African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which Egypt ratified in 1984. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has stated that civilians should never face military trial.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations body charged with interpreting the Convention on the Rights of the Child, has stressed that “the conduct of criminal proceedings against children within the military justice system should be avoided.” Egypt ratified the convention in 1990, making it one of the earliest state parties to the convention.

“The referral of so many civilians to military courts is an attempt by Egyptian authorities to provide a judicial rubber stamp for their crackdown,” Houry said. “But these military trials – often involving hundreds of civilians at a time – are neither fair nor credible.”

SISI'S MILITARY COURTS LAW

On October 27, 2014 – three days after armed extremists killed dozens of soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula – al-Sisi, in the absence of a parliament, decreed Law 136 for the Securing and Protection of Public and Vital Facilities.

The law placed essentially all public property under military jurisdiction for two years and specifically included electricity stations, gas pipelines, oil wells, railroads, road networks, and bridges, in addition to similar state-owned property. To charge civilians under the law, military prosecutors filed charges such as blocking road and rail networks, burning electricity infrastructure or attacking government property, such as telephone exchanges.

On November 11, 2014, Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat issued a memo to prosecutors instructing them to review their files for cases that might fall under the new law, prepare memos about them, and refer them to military prosecutors “whenever requested.”

Article 204 of Egypt’s Constitution, approved by popular referendum in January 2014, under the interim government that followed Morsy’s removal, specifies a range of crimes for which civilians can face military trial, though it ostensibly limits such cases to assaults on military personnel or equipment, or crimes that involve military factories, funds, secrets, or documents.

The article is largely the same as one in the previous constitution, passed during Morsy’s administration, which also allowed military courts to try civilians, despite protests from activists and some politicians.

The wave of military prosecutions against civilians since October 2014 marks a return to the practice, which the authorities employed widely after Egypt’s 2011 uprising. Between January 28 and August 29, 2011, 11,879 civilians faced military trials, and at least 8,071 were convicted, according to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which governed Egypt during most of that period.

Under the rule of Hosni Mubarak, the longtime president ousted in 2011, emergency law allowed him to refer civilians directly to military trial. Between 1992 and 1998, military courts tried more than 1,000 civilians in mass trials, most of them alleged members of al-Jihad or the Islamic Group, extremist Sunni Muslim organizations that were waging an antigovernment insurgency.

Such trials were rarer during the 2000s and mostly reserved for sensitive political cases, such as those against members of the Brotherhood leadership. Military trials of civilians virtually halted during Morsy’s one-year administration, which began in June 2012, though the practice remained legal.

Three cases documented by Human Rights Watch show how military trials under al-Sisi have relied solely on the word of National Security officers, some of whom are accused by defendants of using torture during their enforced disappearance to force them to confess.


REPORT CONTINUES...

Military court sentences 21 students to 15 years imprisonment

Mada Masr

Military court sentences 21 student protesters to 15 years in prison

Wednesday February 11, 2015 

On Wednesday, the North Cairo Military Court sentenced 21 students to 15 years imprisonment each.

Ten of these students were present in court during the sentencing, while another 11 were sentenced in absentia.

These 21 students of Sadat City University had stood trial on charges of protesting without a permit and vandalizing public property on campus.

The office of the Prosecutor General referred these students to a military tribunal in light of the presidential decree which stipulates that "attacks against public institutions, facilities and public properties fall under the jurisdiction of the military judiciary."

The events in question date back to October, prior to Presidential Decree 136/2014 which was issued on October 27, when security forces arrested ten students on the aforementioned charges, and filed these same charges against another 11 students.

Prosecutors in the Nile Delta city of Tanta, who had initially filed criminal charges against these 21 students, moved to refer them to a military tribunal following the issuing of Presidential Decree 136/2014.

One of the lawyers for these students, Mohamed Eissa, told Mada Masr that the referral of his clients to a military trial "was fraught with problems from the very beginning, as the arrests took place prior to the issuing of this decree which grants military courts jurisdiction over their case."

Subsequently, the lawyer pointed out that the referral of these students to a military trial violates the principle of non-retroactivity of legislation, especially when such legislation violates a defendant's rights.

According to Eissa, several of the lawyers for these 21 students sought to file a legal appeal citing the military court's lack of jurisdiction in this case, due to the fact that the law was issued after the students were arrested and charged.

However, other defense lawyers and even family members agreed to have these students stand trial before the military court, as they were under the impression that military courts mete out justice more thoroughly than civilian courts.

The differences amongst the defense team led Eissa and other lawyers to take another legal path.

Eissa's camp filed a legal appeal before the State Council Court against Presidential Decree 136/2014, and specifically against the referral of the 21 students to a military court.

The State Council Court has accepted the lawyers' motion, and has set February 24 as the date for the preliminary session through which to examine this legal appeal as well as assessing the constitutionality of this presidential decree.

Eissa concluded: "The law has been amended so as to allow appeals against verdicts issued by first degree military courts. However, upon looking into the appeals of the military judiciary we find that all previous verdicts issued by military courts have subsequently been upheld."

Sisi authorizes unprecedented expansion of military trials against civilians

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Egypt: Unprecedented Expansion of Military Courts

Decree Broadens Jurisdiction Over Civilians

November 17, 2014

 

(Beirut) – An October 27 decree by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt vastly extended the reach of the country’s military courts and risks militarizing the prosecution of protesters and other government opponents.

The new law, decreed by al-Sisi in the absence of a parliament, places all “public and vital facilities” under military jurisdiction for the next two years and directs state prosecutors to refer any crimes at those places to their military counterparts, paving the way for further military trials of civilians. Egypt’s military courts, which lack even the shaky due process guarantees provided by regular courts, have tried more than 11,000 civilians since the 2011 uprising.

“This law represents another nail in the coffin of justice in Egypt,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director. “Its absurdly broad provisions mean that many more civilians who engage in protests can now expect to face trial before uniformed judges subject to the orders of their military superiors.”

On November 16, a Cairo criminal court referred five al-Azhar University students to military court on charges related to repeated protests that have broken out at the university against al-Sisi’s government. The students are charged with joining a terrorist organization, displaying force, threatening to use violence, possession of Molotov cocktails, and vandalism, according to the Aswat Masriya news service. The criminal court reportedly ruled that it lacked jurisdiction in the case.

Al-Sisi issued the decree three days after an attack in the Sinai Peninsula killed dozens of soldiers, the deadliest strike yet in an insurgency that has grown since the army ousted Egypt’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsy, in July 2013.

The new decree, Law 136 of 2014 for the Securing and Protection of Public and Vital Facilities, states that the armed forces “shall offer assistance to the police and fully coordinate with them in securing and protecting public and vital facilities,” including electricity stations, gas pipelines, oil wells, railroads, road networks, bridges, and any similar state-owned property.

Military judges have presided over trials of civilians in Egypt for decades, despite efforts by activists and some politicians to eliminate the practice. In the months following the 2011 uprising, for example, Egypt’s military courts tried almost 12,000 civilians on an array of regular criminal charges. 

 

But the new law greatly expands the jurisdiction of military courts, giving them their widest legal authority since the birth of Egypt’s modern republic in 1952. Before al-Sisi’s decree, Egypt’s constitution and code of military justice theoretically limited military prosecutions to cases that directly involved the armed forces or their property, though the country’s 31-year state of emergency, which expired in 2012, allowed the president to refer civilians to military courts.

Egypt’s military appears intent on interpreting the new law broadly. Interviewed on the CBC television channel on November 1, General Medhat Ghozy, who heads the Military Judiciary Authority, said that military jurisdiction now extends over any building or property that provides a “general service” or is state owned.

“If there’s a public facility, or a vital one, when it’s assaulted, who’s the attacker?” Ghozy said. “[It doesn’t matter] if it’s a woman, or a man, or a teacher, or a student, or a teenager, or a child … the law is a general, abstract rule. We can’t say now: these are universities, these are factories, these are electricity stations.”

Since al-Sisi – a former defense minister and army chief – oversaw the forcible removal and imprisonment of Morsy in the wake of mass protests in July 2013, military courts have tried at least 140 civilians, according to the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, including three children and four journalists. Most of the accused have faced charges of assaulting military personnel or equipment.

On October 21, a military court imposed death sentences for seven men and life sentences for two others for their involvement in three violent incidents in March 2014 that left nine soldiers dead. Authorities alleged that the men belonged to Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, Egypt’s most prominent insurgent group. On November 10, the group pledged allegiance to the Syria-based organization Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

Police claim to have arrested the nine men in a March 19 raid on an abandoned warehouse in the Qalyubia governorate, north of Cairo, and to have found evidence of explosives and weapons used in the lethal attacks on soldiers earlier that month. But the trial, conducted before a panel of generals at the Hikestep military base northeast of Cairo, lacked basic due process guarantees, putting its fairness in question.

Ahmed Helmy, a lawyer for four of the men, told Human Rights Watch that families of three defendants first sought his help in January, two months before the police say they arrested the men, suggesting that the authorities’ account of the raid was inaccurate.

“These three defendants simply disappeared separately in November and December 2013, months before the events they are charged with –  they were kept in Azouli prison,” Helmy said, referring to a secret military facility inside al-Galaa army base in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, which the authorities have used to hold up to hundreds of civilian detainees, according to human rights groups and media reports. “We filed a complaint to the public prosecutor but the authorities kept denying that the three guys were in custody.”

Helmy said that the authorities would not allow him to visit his clients in custody before the trial and that he first met them at the initial court hearing in June.

A brother of Hani Amer, one of the defendants, told Human Rights Watch that Amer disappeared on December 16, 2013, after visiting the district director’s office in Ismailia to obtain a permit for his information technology company. The brother said that witnesses told the family that men in civilian clothes had detained Amer and his business partner, Ahmed Suleiman, as well as the district director. The director, whom authorities released hours later, eventually told the family that police had taken Amer to the Galaa base.

Amer later told his brother that authorities had moved him in March from Azouli prison to the high-security Scorpion facility inside Tora Prison in Cairo. When his brother visited him there on August 10, Amer showed no obvious signs of injury, although Suleiman, the business partner, had told the brother that Amer’s shoulders had been dislocated by torture when he was held in Azouli prison months earlier.

Another defendant appeared at the military trial in a wheelchair. His father told Human Rights Watch that his son had disappeared on March 16 or 17, 2014, following which the father filed complaints with the Interior Ministry without success. Later, he said, a man who refused to disclose his identify visited the father’s home and told him that authorities were holding his son in Tora Prison.

When the father eventually obtained permission to visit his son, for only a few minutes, he found his son using crutches.

“He said that they tortured him,” the father said. “His left knee was completely destroyed and his left femur bone was broken. I asked him directly, ‘Did you meet with a prosecutor?’ He said he couldn’t know because he was blindfolded during most of the interrogations. All the confessions were dictated by officers under torture.”

Helmy, the lawyer, told Human Rights Watch that even though the men can appeal their sentences, the authorities have made the defendants wear the orange jumpsuits worn by prisoners who have received final verdicts, apparently to “pressure them psychologically.” He has tried to convince the men to lodge appeals, but so far they have declined.

The father of the other said he had also urged his son to appeal, but that his son responded: “You don’t hire a room from someone who stole your house.”

The nine men also face trial before a regular criminal court as part of a group of more than 200 defendants accused of belonging to Ansar Beit al-Maqdis.

Egypt’s military courts operate under the authority of the Defense Ministry, not the civilian judicial authorities. They typically deny defendants rights accorded by civilian courts, including the right to be informed of the charges against them, and the rights to access a lawyer and to be brought promptly before a judge following arrest.

In April, a military court sentenced a social media manager for the online news website Rassd to one year in prison for helping to leak a tape of remarks by al-Sisi during his time as defense minister. The court acquitted one Rassd employee and sentenced two others who remain at large and an army conscript to three-year prison terms. 

 

In May and September, military courts handed down one-year sentences against 10 defendants – mostly Muslim Brotherhood members or allied politicians – for attempting to cross into Sudan illegally. In Suez, a military court has repeatedly postponed the trial of 20 civilians arrested in August 2013 and charged with attacking government buildings.

The use of military courts to try civilians violates the 1981 African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which Egypt’s parliament ratified in 1984. The African human rights commission Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Fair Trial and Legal Assistance explicitly forbid military trials of civilians in all circumstances.

Al-Sisi’s law closely resembles a pair of decrees that Justice Minister Adel Abdel Hamid and Egypt’s then-ruling military council issued in June 2012, just before Morsy’s election and immediately after the country’s long-running state of emergency expired. Abdel Hamid’s decree empowered military police and intelligence officers to arrest civilians, while the military council’s decree empowered the president to call in soldiers “to share in law enforcement duties and the protection of public institutions.”

Article 204 of Egypt’s constitution, drafted and approved by popular referendum in January during the interim government that followed Morsy’s removal, specifies a range of crimes for which civilians can be tried in military courts, including assaults on military personnel or equipment, or crimes that involve military factories, funds, secrets, or documents. It is largely the same as Article 198 of the previous constitution, passed during the Morsy administration, which also allowed military courts to put civilians on trial over the protest of activists and some politicians.

“This new decree is pernicious and contrary to basic standards of justice,” Whitson said. “Egypt’s authorities should annul all the military court verdicts against civilians handed down since the new government took power, and President al-Sisi needs to act quickly to amend his decree.” 

Sisi expands army's power to send civilians to military trials

Washington Post  
Egypt’s leader grants military broad powers to put civilians on trial

October 27, 2014

Erin Cunningham

CAIRO — Egypt’s president expanded the powers of the country’s armed forces Monday to enable the prosecution of civilians in military courts, a move that rights activists fear will intensify an already searing government crackdown on dissent.

The measures by President ­Abdel Fatah al-Sissi give the military even broader reach than during the decades under Hosni Mubarak, who applied relentless pressure on perceived opponents until his ouster in early 2011.

Sissi’s decree allows the military to try civilians for a wide variety of crimes, including destroying public property and blocking roads.

Egypt’s constitution already grants the army the ability to try cases that directly involve a military officer or an army installation. But Monday’s edict extends the military’s jurisdiction to cover attacks on “vital” institutions such as power plants, oil fields and bridges.

The move by Sissi, a former defense minister who rose to power as a military strongman, follows a devastating attack last week on an army checkpoint in the Sinai Peninsula, where militant groups have flourished in recent years.

The suicide car bombing killed more than 30 soldiers, making it the deadliest attack on Egyptian army personnel in decades. Government officials said Monday that the law is necessary to ensure the safety of citizens and that it will remain in force for two years.

But military trials in Egypt are often held in secret, and judges mete out swift verdicts that can be challenged only before a military appeals court. Activists say civilian lawyers have trouble navigating the military justice system, leaving defendants without proper legal counsel.

Experts are worried that the scope of the military’s expanded jurisdiction will permanently sideline civilian courts in favor of army tribunals.

“This decree means we will destroy the civilian courts and make military justice the norm,” said Mohamed Zarea, director of the Cairo-based Arab Penal Reform Organization, which offers legal assistance to prisoners. “We can’t just turn all of our state institutions into military institutions.”

The current government has presided over one of the most repressive periods in Egypt’s history, beginning when Sissi toppled Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in a military coup in 2013.

The subsequent rise of a low-level insurgency has contributed to steady attacks against security personnel, killing hundreds.

Authorities have arrested tens of thousands of people in a bid to cripple the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that backed Morsi and that is Egypt’s largest opposition movement. But the clampdown also has extended to secular activists and students opposed to Sissi’s rule.

On Sunday, an Egyptian judge sentenced 23 activists to three years in prison for violating a protest law adopted late last year. In the wake of the Sinai attack, Egyptian media personalities have urged the local press to refrain from publishing stories that would “undermine” the army’s efforts to fight terrorism.

“This is just the imposition of authoritarian power through emergency law,” said Amir Salem, an Egyptian human rights lawyer. “And what it means is that there will be more decrees like this and probably more crackdowns.”

*Heba Habib contributed to this report.