Report: Civilians tried in military courts in Egypt

Some 4,000 Egyptian civilians have been referred to military courts in one year, a prominent human rights activist said. In October 2014, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi approved legislation allowing individuals accused of committing violations against state institutions to be referred to military courts. "Around 4,000 civilians have been referred to military tribunals in one year since the law was enacted," Ahmed Mefreh of the Geneva-based Alkarama for Human Rights said in a Wednesday statement. Mefreh cited that more than 500 civilians were tried by a military court on violence charges last year. "These referrals represent a collective punishment that wastes the [defendants'] rights and freedoms," he said.

The pressure on opposition continues as police arrested 20 members of the Muslim Brotherhood which has been enlisted as terrorist organization. Egyptian police forces have arrested 20 members of the embattled Muslim Brotherhood group in fresh security sweeps, according to the Interior Ministry. In a Thursday statement, the ministry said the Brotherhood members had been detained over the past 24 hours for allegedly committing and inciting ‘acts of violence'.

After Sissi took power through overthrowing Egypt's first democratically elected president Mohammad Morsi, the international community voiced its concern weakly against the human rights violations, mass death sentences, arbitrary detentions and the suppression of all opposition groups by the Sissi rule, despite the repeated warnings of rights groups. Moreover, the U.S. did not condemn the mass killing of people in Egypt as happened in Rabaa Square in 2013. The systematic and widespread killing of at least 817 demonstrators by Egyptian security forces in July and August 2013 probably amounts to crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report.