CAIRO, Jan 31 (AFP) - A group of British human rights observers visiting Egypt to watch the trial of 20 Muslim Brothers in a military court criticized the trial and the Egyptian justice system.
The group of three, two of whom are reporting to a British parliamentary committee on human rights, complained there was insufficient evidence to try the Brothers, who are charged with harming state security and trying to take over professional unions.
Sayyad Mohy Eddeen, member of an international group of lawyers campaigning for fair trials around the world, complained that the defendants were being treated like animals in "cages" so small they could not sit down in them.
"We're concerned about the system," he told a press conference after a week in Egypt attending the trial, visiting the defendants in jail and interviewing independent observers and Egyptian officials at the Interior Ministry. "These men have been persecuted because they are Muslim," claimed Ken Palmerton, who is reporting to the parliamentary committee chaired by Lord Avebury of the Liberal Democrat party.
Mohy Eddeen also questioned the legitimacy of trying civilians in military courts and complained the public had insufficient access to the trial, which began in late December at a military base 40 km (25 miles) from Cairo. He added that he and his colleagues had heard reports about thousands of people being kept in jail [in Egypt] for nine or ten years without trial. "These reports are quite frightening," said the lawyer, who is director of the commission of human rights with the London-based Justice International, a global network of lawyers.
The Muslim Brothers charged with "propagating the ideas of the banned Brotherhood, damaging security and seeking to seize control of the trade unions," face up to life imprisonment with hard labor in the military court, whose sentences cannot be appealed. If they are found guilty, their only recourse is to appeal to President Hosni Mubarak. However, the president has never yet commuted the sentences of Islamists previously tried by military courts.
The Brotherhood, which is generally tolerated but officially banned here, controls the great majority of the country's 21 professional associations, which have a total membership of about 3 million. Egyptian authorities, fearing the toppling of their regime, have accused the organization of encouraging violence, although the group is seeking to establish an Islamic state through peaceful means.
