Over the past few days, as part of the “Courts Under Watch” campaign, the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms has exposed the violations faced by defendants in exceptional courts, which serve as tools of repression rather than justice.
The report “Military Trials and Counterterrorism Cases: The State’s Tools to Curb Political Violence in Egypt Since 2013,” which formed the basis of this campaign, revealed how unfair trials have become a mechanism for silencing dissenting voices.
These violations persist amid a lack of transparency and oversight over security and judicial institutions, entrenching impunity and undermining the foundations of justice. The consequences of these policies extend beyond the detained individuals, affecting society as a whole and harming both political and economic stability.
The campaign recommends the following:
- Ending the referral of civilians to military courts and ensuring their right to be tried before a natural judge.
- Abolishing prolonged pretrial detention and establishing strict regulations to prevent its misuse as a disguised form of punishment.
- Stopping the practice of “recycling” detainees into new cases, which keeps them in custody for years without a fair trial.
- Suspending the implementation of death sentences in politically motivated cases and reviewing rulings issued without proper judicial guarantees.
- Ensuring public trials, allowing independent observers and media to attend, and ending the secrecy surrounding military trials.
- Guaranteeing judicial independence from the executive authority and preventing security interference in court decisions.
- Implementing legislative reforms to amend the counterterrorism law, ensuring it is not used to suppress peaceful opposition.
- Halting the use of arbitrary detention as a political tool and releasing all individuals detained for expressing their opinions or on fabricated charges.
- Improving prison conditions and ensuring that all detainees receive medical care and have the right to family visits.
- Establishing independent oversight mechanisms to hold security and judicial officials accountable for human rights violations.
The continuation of these violations erodes trust in the judicial system, threatens societal stability, and hinders any genuine efforts for political and economic reform. Security cannot be achieved without justice, and a democratic state cannot be built without an independent judiciary that upholds citizens’ fundamental rights.
We call on the Egyptian authorities to immediately halt these practices and commit to genuine judicial reforms, as justice is not merely a slogan—it is a right that must be guaranteed for all without exception.