[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] on Sunday criticized [press release] the mass trial of 51 Muslim Brotherhood supporters, claiming that the government presented no evidence of a crime being committed by the men other than the testimony of a single police officer. Specifically they noted that the only evidence presented shows that the men were only spreading news about and organizing peaceful protests. On April 11 the court convicted and sentenced to death [JURIST report] 14 of the 51 men and gave the 37 others life sentences for organizing opposition to the military’s removal of ex-president Mohamed Morsi [BBC profile] in July 2013. The charges included publishing false news stories and conspiring to overthrow the government. The protests in Cairo’s Rab’a al-Adawiya Square on August 14, 2013, were violently broken up by security forces and resulted in the deaths of more than 800 peaceful protesters. Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director, stated, “The fact that people who covered and publicized the mass killings in 2013 could go to prison for life or be executed while the killers walk free captures the abject politicization of justice in Egypt.”

Political conflict in Egypt has been ongoing since the ouster of Morsi [JURIST news archive] in 2013, and political backlash has been particularly strong against his Muslim Brotherhood party. Earlier this month an Egyptian prosecutor referred [JURIST report] 187 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to a military court. The supporters are accused of killing police officers while storming a Maghagha police station in the southern province of Minya in August 2013, only weeks after the removal of Morsi. In late March an Egyptian court acquitted 68 people [JURIST report], including members of the Muslim Brotherhood, who were charged with gathering illegally and attacking security forces earlier this year. Also in March an Egyptian court sentenced [JURIST report] a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and 13 others to death after finding them guilty of planning attacks against the state.