Sarah Leah Watson, Executive Director of Democracy Now for the Arab World, said that US President Joe Biden can certainly express his doubts about the recent executions in Egypt against a number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders.
She added – in an interview on Al Jazeera Mubasher – that Biden can also ask Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to use his political influence to have these provisions reviewed in accordance with Egyptian law, but the question is, “Does Biden want to say something like that or not, and what are the consequences of that?” On President Sisi, who has repeatedly shown that he does not care about the opinions of the international community?
Will stop Biden the recent death sentences in Egypt against 12 people in the Rabaa case? pic.twitter.com/frdMtiK1GU
– Al Jazeera Mubasher (@ajmubasher) June 21, 2021
Sarah pointed out that the death sentences issued in the case of the dispersal of the Rabaa sit-in took place after the visit of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Cairo.
She pointed out that although the US President sent a clear message during his election campaign that he wanted to change his policy with Sisi and would not give him blank checks, the message that Blinken sent on his visit was that they did not mean that and that Sisi is a legitimate partner, and therefore may have encouraged Sisi to move forward in Death sentences, as she put it.
In this context, Salma Ashraf, director of Human Rights Monitor, confirmed that the Egyptian judiciary has become completely politicized since the military coup in the summer of 2013 and a tool in the hands of the security authorities, and that the executions taking place in Egypt have conclusively proven that they are revenge measures that are not based on any foundations or evidence, as she described them. .
Can the American support for the Egyptian army stop after the execution cases and the failure to release political detainees? # Egypt pic.twitter.com/1BF1zPIprj
– Al Jazeera Mubasher (@ajmubasher) June 21, 2021
She added that the execution cases that were previously carried out were the same as the victims, as they were forcibly disappeared and confessions were extracted from them under torture, noting that the Egyptian authorities persisted in these practices “because they find international silence, which means tacit approval of them.”
“Therefore, we call on President Biden, who has pledged to protect human rights, to intervene to stop executions in Egypt immediately,” she added.
For his part, lawyer and human rights lawyer Asaad Heikal said that we are in the process of final and enforceable rulings according to the Egyptian law and constitution, which now means that the case papers are submitted by the Minister of Justice to the President of the Republic, who has the right to lift or reduce the penalty, adding that whoever resorted to the threat and American pressure resorted to For the wrong way, President Sisi will not succumb to such pressures.
In a statement, Egyptian and American figures and authorities called on Biden to release political detainees and to halt the execution of death sentences recently issued in Egypt against 12 people in the case of the Rabaa sit-in dispersal.
The statement indicated that 4 of those sentenced to death were arrested a few weeks before the Rab’a dispersal, and stressed that several Western countries and major human rights organizations described what happened in Rab’a al-Adawiya Square as a massacre and amounted to a crime against humanity.