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Amnesty Attacks Egypt's Military Trial of Muslim Civilian Activists
LONDON, Nov. 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Amnesty International said Tuesday that the use of a military court for the trial of 94 Egyptian and foreign Islamic civilian activists violated "fundamental requirements of international law," news agencies reported Tuesday.
The defendants are accused of setting up an illegal group that allegedly planned to use force to overthrow the government, BBC's online news service reported.
Eighty-seven men went on trial Sunday behind a cage in a Cairo courtroom, said Agence France-Presse (AFP). Seven others were being tried in absentia.
"Trials before these military courts violate fundamental requirements of international law for fair trial, including the right to be tried before a competent, independent and impartial court established by law and the right to appeal to a higher court," Amnesty's statement said.
The trial is Egypt's first military trial of civilians in two years.
The judge has adjourned the trial until Wednesday in order to allow defense lawyers to study the case against their clients, most of whom are Egyptian, though several are from the Russian republic of Dagestan and one is from Yemen, AFP reported.
Many defendants said they had been tortured during detention and denounced the case against them as a "political trial" to appease the United States after the deadly September 11 attacks, said AFP.
"The government should ensure that effective safeguards are put in place to prevent the practice of torture in detention centers in Egypt," Amnesty said.
Some of the defendants and their relatives said they had been tortured to obtain confessions.
"It's wrong, it's an injustice," BBC quoted the mother of one defendant as saying.
Other distraught relatives said the men were behind bars because they were devout Muslims, and the trial was put on in order to appease the Americans in the wake of September 11.
It is one of the biggest trials of its kind in Egypt for several years and has raised human rights concerns with accusations that defendants were tortured.
Most of the men were arrested in May and initially accused only of collecting donations without a permit for the Palestinian uprising and for Chechnya, BBC said. The more serious charges only came later.
A human rights activist defending one of the men said he believed Egypt was trying to show that it still faced a problem with terrorism in order to justify continued repression.
But the Egyptian government believes its heavy-handed approach has been vindicated by the deadly attacks on the U.S.
Meanwhile, another trial of two members of the Egyptian movement al-Gama'a Islamiya, accused of the murder of a secret agent in 1994, was pushed back to December 23 on Monday, a court source said, AFP reported.
The trial was postponed because of a procedural error, as the prosecutor's office forgot to notify one of the accused, Mahmud al-Fuli, of the upcoming court proceedings, the same source added.
The other accused, Rifaat Zidane, is on the run and will be tried in absentia.
The two Islamic activists were summoned to appear at the end of July. They are accused of "belonging to an illegal organization which calls for the suspension of the constitution by recourse to force, as well as the liquidation of public figures and police officers."
Rifaat Zidane led the military wing of Gamaa Islamiya in the southern province of Minya during the 1990s, according to the police.
Zidane and al-Fuli are accused of killing secret agent Ali Sabet in an attack organized with two other members of the organization in 1994 at Dayrut, in the Upper Egyptian province of Assiut.
Al-Fuli, who is in detention, turned himself into the police in 1994.
The Gamaa Islamiya is viewed as the largest armed Egyptian radical group. But in 1999, it renounced violence.
U.S. President George W. Bush signed an order early last week that would allow for non-American suspected terrorists to be tried before a special military panel instead of in civilian courts, the White House said.
"He signed a military order today [Tuesday, Nov 14] which gives him an additional tool in fighting the war against terrorism and bringing terrorists to justice," said spokeswoman Anne Womack.
The order gives Bush the power to direct U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to set up a military commission to try non-American terror suspects.
It said such individuals had to be detained and tried by military tribunals so that the United States could ensure the security of both its citizens and those in countries committed to Washington's global war on terrorism.
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