Egypt sentences Mohammed Morsi supporters to up to 88 years in jail

[Kushan Prince]

Cairo: An Egyptian court on Saturday convicted and sentenced 11 alleged supporters of the country's ousted Islamist president to up to 88 years in prison on charges that include violating a protest law and assaulting police.
The case comes amid a sweeping crackdown by Egypt's military-backed government against the Muslim Brotherhood. Authorities have killed hundreds of Islamists and arrested some 16,000 others since the army removed President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader, from office last July.
Five of the 11 people sentenced Saturday by the court in the southern city of Minya were tried in absentia. The charges against all of the defendants were linked to demonstrations in the town of Samallout to protest the violent dispersal by security forces of two weeks-long pro-Morsi sit-ins that killed hundreds and wounded thousands.

Hundreds of secular-minded activists and protesters rallied in front of the presidential palace, demanding the interim president abolish a disputed protest law used extensively over the past months to jail and prosecute activists, including leading figures of the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. (Associated Press)

The presiding judge on Saturday was the same one who issued death sentences against nearly 530 suspected Islamists in mass trial in March. The ruling stunned rights groups, and drew condemnation from abroad.
In Cairo, meanwhile, hundreds of secular-minded activists and protesters rallied in front of the presidential palace Saturday, demanding the interim president abolish a disputed protest law used extensively over the past months to jail and prosecute activists, including leading figures of the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
The law issued in November bans all political gatherings and protests without prior permission from police. Violators are punished by heavy fines or jail time. Rights groups have sharply criticized the law, calling it draconian.
While marching toward the palace on Saturday, some of the protesters chanted "Freedom" and "Abolish the law, get them out of prison." Others carried pictures of jailed activists. A few in the crowd tore down posters for the former military chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who is now the front-runner in next month's presidential elections.
El-Sissi became hugely popular among a large sector of Egyptians after he led Morsi's removal from power. However, harsh measures adopted by the military-backed government since then - including the jailing of several prominent activists - have opened a rift with a small segment of the secular-minded opposition.

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/egypt-sentences-mohammed-morsi-supporters-to-up-to-88-years-in-jail/467838-2.html

[Pakwatan]

Egyptian Military establishment is a slave of the west.

I spit on Egypt.

[Manzareh]

martial law n dictatorships. Saddam was bad - the americans even more so. Gaddafi was bad, Bashar was bad - but whoever replaced them are even worse. Mubarak was bad but these leaders? devils.

[randolph85]

The usually suspects are loving the news of Muslims being imprisoned and killed. Surprise surprise.

[Kushan Prince]

Egyptian Military establishment is a slave of the west.

I spit on Egypt.

So is the paki ISI. The army controls and practically governs the whole country while taking orders and money from saudi arabia.

[Karachi]

Egyptians are very very very divided people. There are few egyptians on my facebook, both religious and secular people and they always keep fighting with each other like crazy over Egyptian politics . I am just shocked at the divisions in the muslim world, why have we become like this? or were we always like this?

[randolph85]

Egyptians are very very very divided people. There are few egyptians on my facebook, both religious and secular people and they always keep fighting with each other like crazy over Egyptian politics . I am just shocked at the divisions in the muslim world, why have we become like this? or were we always like this?

Muslims have the grassroots, the murtads have a western budget.

Even having a beard in the wrong place is enough to get beat up in Egypt these days. These secularist Egyptians are far more hostile to Muslims than even westerners.

[Pakwatan]

Being Muslim in this day and age means being targeted by seculars and kanjars.

I don't accept westerners looking down on my culture. My identity and my ideals are the same before I migrated to the United States. If ****my white people from US cannot accept, my differences than it proves that a free and independent America is bs.

[Bengal_Tiger]

1. Karachi is totally correct, Egyptians are heavily polarized. Many anti-Brotherhood Egyptians (who are not necessarily secularists and some are religious) are fiercely anti-Brotherhood.

An Arab I know who was in Egypt said he was absolutely shocked by the level of polarization there.


2. There is a theory that the Nasserite Egyptian army was upset with Mubarak and his arrogant sons who he was apparently grooming to succeed him.

They removed him. The Brotherhood gained power but were deliberately handicapped by the Nasserite establishment e.g. old establishment figures creating power shortages and other practical problems. This may have been the plan all along to give them power, sabotage it and then remove them.


3. Egypt is socially too divided for the Brotherhood or a similar organization to run the country.

Apparently Copts are 8% of the country but control 40% of the economy, so they are influential (despite what the western media claim with their portrayal of them as an underprivileged community) and will not want the Brotherhood in power.


4. The Brotherhood is hated by Saudi Arabia and the GCC who see it as an existential threat to their survival and who have given the Sisi government billions of dollars.


5. The Nasserite Egyptian military is pro-Assad and one of the first things it did was to re-open the Syrian embassy.

Thus Nasserite Egypt and Algeria are two of the big heavyweights in the Arab world supporting Syria.

I think that the overthrow of Morsi may one day be regarded as one the key events that ensured the survival of the Syrian government.

Syria and Egypt were briefly one country for 3 years from 1958-1961 under Jamal Abdul Nasir (commonly spelt inaccurately as "Nasser").


6. In the Muslim world this is what I think the governments think of the Brotherhood.


Indonesia - neutral but probably slightly against the brotherhood as Indonesia has a large non-Muslim minority and dislikes fundamentalists whom it sees as a threat to stability.

Bangladesh - anti-Brotherhood as the Brotherhood support the Jamaat e Islami terrorist organization which carried out massacres and rapes in 1971.


Iraq - anti-Brotherhood, happy to see a pro-Syrian Egypt.


Turkey - pro-Brotherhood


Tunisia - pro-Brotherhood


Central Asian states - Anti Brotherhood.

Malaysia - neutral but probably slightly anti-Brotherhood due to most moderate Muslim governments hating extreme fundamentalists.


Morocco - anti-Brotherhood


Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, UAE all anti-Brotherhood.


So apart from Turkey, no major state in the Muslim world supports the Brotherhood.

Turkey itself is said to be heading for an economic crisis in the next few years and Erdogan is very unpopular. Erdogan's regime have themselves been defeated in Syria, humiliated in Bangladesh (where sanctions were applied on them and they are missing out on billions of dollars in lost deals), sanctioned by the Gulf Arabs etc.




Turks against the Erdogan regime.

[Bengal_Tiger]

Interesting.

I found out the Indonesian government's position on this and their words will be music to the ears of the Brotherhood supporters on this forum:

Separately, Indonesia expressed its concerns over a mass trial in Egypt on Monday in which the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and more than 680 other people were sentenced to death over last year’s post-coup violence.

“As a friendly country that has the largest Muslim population in the world, Indonesia is closely observing the situation in Egypt with deep concern,” Marty said in an official statement.

“With no intention of interfering with the domestic issues in Egypt, we are concerned about the death sentences given to the 683 members of the Muslim Brotherhood on April 28, as well as to 529 other Egyptians who were sentenced in March,” he said. “This has widely attracted Indonesian people’s attention.”

The mass trials were linked to riots in which supporters of ousted president Mohamed Mursi allegedly attacked police stations and churches, in retaliation for security forces violently breaking up sit-ins by Islamists in Cairo in August, leaving hundreds dead. The defendants in Monday’s trial are part of a group of nearly 1,000 who were implicated in the deaths of three policemen and a civilian, as well as the injury of many others.

“We also pray that the democratization process in Egypt remains focused on inclusive reconciliation […] with a hope that the processes will be accomplished peacefully,” Marty said.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/04/30/indonesia-protests-czech-mosque-raid.html

Indonesia's foreign minister, Marty Natalegawa.

Though I don't like the Brotherhood I have to support Indonesia's calls for caution and reconciliation.

[Zubr-Zubr]

Mursi accomplished many errors. "Brothers-moslems" did not govern Egypt on equity basis. Here Allah and humiliated Egypt. A sheriat is a rescue for Egypt.