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After surviving the bloodshed when Egyptian security forces killed some 800 people in a large Islamist protest camp in 2013, 12 members of the Muslim Brotherhood are waiting to be hanged on death row.
For their families, it is an agonizing wait, knowing that their loved ones could be executed at any time, without warning, after exhausting all avenues of appeal.
Brothers Mahmud and Adam, who spoke to AFP on condition that their real names were not used for fear of reprisal, said their inability to do more to exonerate their father was a constant source of anxiety.
“The pain of his absence has worsened now that he has been sentenced to death in a final verdict and he will die no matter what. It is truly a dire situation,” Adam told AFP.
The 12 prisoners threatened with imminent execution were among 739 defendants prosecuted in a mass trial that the United Nations condemned as a travesty of justice.
Amnesty International, a London-based human rights group, accused Egypt of seeking to deflect attention from security forces’ guilt for the August 2013 mass shooting in Rabaa al-Adawiya Square in Cairo.
An Egyptian riot police officer points his gun at protesters as security forces forcibly evict Islamist protesters from Rabaa al-Adawiya Square in Cairo in August 2013. By MOHAMMED ABDEL MONEIM (MOHAMMED ABDEL MONEIM / AFP / File) “It has become increasingly clear that the Egyptian authorities intend to shield the security forces from any responsibility for their role in the Rabaa massacre,” said the group’s deputy director for the Middle East and ‘North Africa, Lynn Maalouf.
“The authorities have instead chosen to take revenge on the survivors (and) the families of the victims.”
AFP has contacted judges involved in the death sentences who declined to comment on the controversial case.
All the defendants were found guilty of all the allegations contained in the indictment, without individual criminal responsibility being established.
They included “arming criminal gangs”, killing police officers, and possessing firearms, ammunition and bomb-making equipment.
Among those sentenced to death are several former senior officials of the government of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, which was overthrown by the then chief of the armed forces, now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
‘Numb’
Their convictions and sentences were confirmed by the Court of Cassation in June, in a final judgment without appeal.
“I learned this from my sister and fell apart completely at that point. This regime doesn’t care about anyone if they’re part of the Brotherhood. They think it’s okay to run it and kill it. throw it in the trash, ”Adam said.
Relatives of members of the Muslim Brotherhood facing the death penalty try to signal their relatives during a hearing in December 2018. By Mohamed el-Shahed (AFP / File) At the time, authorities said the thousands of protesters demanding Morsi’s reinstatement were armed and their forced dispersal was a vital counterterrorism measure.
No Egyptian official has ever been tried for these murders.
The Muslim Brotherhood is one of Egypt’s oldest political movements, spilling over into the Muslim world, but later that year authorities banned it as a “terrorist organization.”
“How in the blink of an eye can you be labeled a terrorist, sentenced to death and deprived of family visits? Asked Adam, who, like his brother, has been denied permission to visit his father since 2016.
“How are governments silent on this? Or does it not matter because he’s from the Brotherhood? It is truly overwhelming. “
Mahmud, the other brother, called the trial “ridiculous” because his father had not been able to meet his lawyer once since his arrest in August 2013.
He said his father had languished in solitary confinement for eight years at Scorpion Prison, one of Egypt’s most notorious prisons.
“Our lives are literally in their hands and are playing like a yoyo,” Mahmud told AFP.
“We went through so much trauma that we went numb.”
“Psychological damage”
Eman, a mother of two in her 30s who also asked that her real name not be released, said she considers herself relatively lucky as her husband is still allowed family visits.
Thousands of Egyptians demanding the restoration of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi had joined the protest camp at Rabaa al-Adawiya Square in Cairo, which was bloodied by troops and riot police. By FAYEZ NURELDINE (AFP / File) “He is in a good mood knowing that he is clearly innocent,” she said after visiting him in a remote desert prison earlier this month.
“He knows the verdict is supposed to crush and upset him but he’s doing well, sending letters to children,” she told AFP.
Her most recent letter to her children was a picture of a “happy family”.
For Eman’s husband, who accepted his fate, the drawing was his lifeline during his long wait in prison, most spent in a two-by-two-meter (seven-by-seven) cell shared with three other inmates. .
His wife said she had prepared her children for the worst.
“From day one my husband said we wanted to come out with as little psychological damage as possible. So he really encouraged me to lead my life and raise the children as normally as possible,” she said. declared.
“This is the reason why we have continued for so long.”
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