In the first executions of 2020, US-client, Field Marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sisi' regime of Egypt Monday (February 24) executed eight people to death sentenced by a military court in May 2019 and accused of attacking three Coptic churches and a police checkpoint that killed 88 people in 2017.
The executions were carried out at Borg El-Arab prison in Alexandria.
Several of the defendants told prosecutors that they were subject to enforced disappearance after their arrest, according to an Egyptian rights organization and reported by Amnesty International.
The human rights organization We Record has said the defendants were subject to systematic torture to obtain false confessions.
We Record published the names of the defendants: Rami Ghani, Walid Abdul Aziz, Mohamed Metwally, Salama Qasim, Ali Shehata, Ali Hassan, Abdul Hussain and Rifai Mohamed.
Since President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi's rise to power in 2013 in a coup against the elected President Mohammad Morsi there have been an unprecedented number of death sentences in Egypt.
Between January 2014 and February 2018 courts recommended the death sentence for at least 2,159 individuals and carried out 83 of them, according to the London based anti-death penalty charity, Reprieve. Between 2011 and 2013, one person was executed.
Ten Children have also been sentenced to death under the rule of Al-Sisi who was Army chief under President Morsi who died last year while appearing in a Cairo Kangaroo court.
In March 2014 a Kanagaroo court in Minya sentenced 529 supporters of former President Mohamed Morsi to be executed for their alleged role in violence following his ousting in July 2013.
"This is injustice writ large and these death sentences must be quashed. Imposing death sentences of this magnitude in a single case makes Egypt surpass most other countries' use of capital punishment in a year," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Program Director at Amnesty International.
"Egypt's courts are quick to punish Mohamed Morsi's supporters but ignore gross human rights violations by the security forces. While thousands of Morsi's supporters languish in jail, there has not been an adequate investigation into the deaths of hundreds of protesters. Just one police officer is facing a prison sentence, for the deaths of 37 detainees.
"Without an independent and impartial process that can deliver truth and justice for all, many will question whether Egypt's criminal justice system has indeed anything to do with justice. In any event, recourse to the death penalty is inherently unjust, and the Egyptian authorities should impose a moratorium on executions, with a view to abolishing it."
Since becoming president following a military coup in 2013, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has ruled Egypt with an iron fist. The government has launched a crackdown on anyone suspected of opposing el-Sisi, with former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected leader, also imprisoned and facing a retrial after previously being sentenced to death.
Amnesty International has described the situation in Egypt as the worst human rights crisis in the country in decades, with the state systematically using arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances to silence any dissent and create an atmosphere of fear.
Abuse and extrajudicial killings are common, with a recent report accusing the Egyptian government of also kidnapping and torturing children, providing evidence that at least six children have been tortured in custody, and a further 12 have been disappeared from their families since 2015.
The year 2020 report of the New York-based Human Rights Watch said:
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