An Egyptian court on Wednesday sentenced 22 to death who were supporters of the Egypt's first democratically elected Mohammad Morsi who was overthrown after a bloody military coup, headed by the incumbent President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. The 22 Muslim Brotherhood members were charged with the death of a policeman in an attack on a police station in Kerdasa on the outskirts of Cairo on July 3, 2013 when the military took over the power. That attack took place on the same day that Egyptian security forces killed hundreds of demonstrators in clashes as they dismantled two massive protest camps.
Also Egypt's state-run media reported that an Egyptian court on Monday sentenced Muslim Brotherhood's leader Mohammad Badie and 13 other Muslim Brotherhood members to death with the verdict of setting up a control room to direct the organization's members across Egypt and inciting chaos and planning attacks on police and army institutions. The verdict was handed to the Grand Mufti which is the highest Islamic legal office and the first step for imposing the sentence.
In March, the same court that sentenced Badie to death was at the center of an international outcry when the court handed out death sentences to 529 alleged Morsi supporters. The judge subsequently confirmed 37 of these sentences and commuted the rest to life in prison. Morsi has been in prison since he was ousted and is on trial for inciting the killing of opposition demonstrators in December 2012 in front of the presidential palace. The ousted president also faces charges of espionage, in collaboration with the Palestinian Hamas movement.
The government crackdown against Morsi supporters since his abduction has led to the killing of at least 1,400 people while 15,000 have been imprisoned. According to the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, a local NGO, said that more than 41,000 Egyptians had been subject to prosecution since Morsi's ouster.
Morsi and many other prominent political figures that were also either members of the Muslim Brotherhood or related to it were arrested. Pro-Morsi and pro-democracy protesters did not leave the streets. They chanted slogans against Sissi and the coup. Sissi claimed that the protesters were threating national security while making a call to his supporters to go to Tahrir Square. Sissi finally gave the order to clear Rabaa Square and at least 817 demonstrators were killed by Egyptian security forces. Also thousands of people were arrested and tortured.
International community including Turkey and the Western countries and right groups harshly condemned Egypt over the mass killings and imprisonments. The Human Rights Watch organization report on the Rabaa massacre released on Aug. 12 revealed the systematic and intentional use of excessive lethal force by police and army forces that resulted in the mass killings of protesters on a scale unprecedented in Egypt.
