The Egyptian authorities should refer all civilian detainees to a civilian court, whose hearings are open to the public, Human Rights Watch said. Every detainee should be brought before an independent civilian judge immediately.
Egypt should also stop arbitrarily arresting peaceful demonstrators in the name of enforcing curfews, Human Rights Watch said.
"Egypt's emergency law was a major source of abuse under Mubarak and, alarmingly, these abuses are continuing," Whitson said. "The state of emergency needs to be ended now."
Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa program at Amnesty International, said, "The sentence against Amr Abdallah Al Beheiry should be dropped and he should be released if he was arrested simply for peacefully protesting. The Egyptian authorities cannot claim they are instigating reform while at the same time trying peaceful protesters before military courts."
The crackdown on protesters in Tahrir Square and outside the parliament who were calling for the dismissal of the current cabinet, carried on throughout Saturday morning.
More protesters were arrested and taken to military police stations behind the Egyptian museum in Tahrir Square, where Amnesty International documented the ill-treatment of previous detainees.
At around 8am on Saturday morning, a high ranking military police official reportedly apologized to the protesters for what happened and said the protesters would be released.
Later the Supreme Military Council said that while security forces meant to disperse the protest they did not intend to clash with the protesters.
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