By Rania Al Malky
CAIRO: The romantic notion that Egypt will be miraculously transformed overnight into a Utopia where human rights are respected and the rule of law, social justice and equality prevail, is fast-receding.
The youth-led revolution that toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak and is in the process of dismantling the regime that reinforced his stranglehold on power for three decades has a long way to go before the vision of a true civil state, with strong institutions and clear separation of powers, is in place.
A shocking report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) published Friday, the first detailed one of its kind, is cause for real concern about the pillars upon which the future of this country are being built.
Titled “Egypt: Military Trials Usurp Justice System”, the report contends that the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has tried more than 5,000 civilians before military tribunals since February. Of these, at least 76 were protesters who were given hasty trials, sometimes in groups of between five and 30, and sent to jail following what HRW terms “unfair proceedings” targeting civilians arrested during peaceful protests on Feb. 26, March 6, March 9, April 9, and April 12.
Adel Ramadan, a lawyer with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, who was quoted in the report as a lawyer who represented some of the defendants before military courts, said that he based the number of sentenced civilians (5,000) on court rolls and case numbers recorded across Egypt between Feb. 11 and mid-April. Proceedings last between 20 and 40 minutes.
Even if one contests the accuracy of the figure (5,000), according to the HRW report, starting Feb. 26, the military sent faxes to Egyptian media which cumulatively listed 647 names and sentences of civilians tried before military courts. The newspapers reproduced these lists without providing any further information. That’s 647 lives.
Although it is understandable that the security vacuum, which started during the days of the uprising, entails that emergency law should stay in place for a limited period until the police forces are fully redeployed, this does not mean that ordinary citizens picked up for violating the curfew, for instance, should face military court and be put away for years.
There is no justification for activating the Code of Military Justice in these cases of arbitrary arrests because the conditions in which they are to be evoked do not exist in the traditional sense. According to the HRW report, “the code, in articles 5 and 6, allows for such trials only under specified conditions, such as when the crime takes place in an area controlled by the military or if one of the parties involved is a military officer.”
The ruling army council seems to have overlooked the fact that we have had a revolution. The presence of military police on the streets of Egypt only came about to protect this revolution and all those who triggered it, and that the army’s legitimacy as the temporary ruler of the country is derived from Egyptian civilians who have accepted the council as temporary measure to see the country through the transition, not as a temporary replacement of the previous authorities wielding absolute power.
The respect every Egyptian holds for the military institution and for its honorable support for the revolution, cannot be contested. But there are 5,000 families whose sons, fathers, brothers have been subjected to terrible injustice. Surely not all of them are innocent lambs sacrificed at the altar to help the army deter crime, but even if they were criminals caught in the act, they must not be tried in military court with no recourse to an appeal or sometimes legal representation. Such procedures are counter productive and will only serve to turn people against the army, which may have all the best intentions, but is clearly misusing its authority.
To reiterate the recommendation made by HRW, “the Code of Military Justice should be amended to restrict the jurisdiction of the military courts to trials only of military personnel charged with offenses of an exclusively military nature.”
If the military is policing the streets in these extraordinary times, then they have every right to arrest anyone engaging in criminal activity, but that’s where their jurisdiction ends. After all Mubarak, his sons and their henchmen are enjoying full-fledged civilian trials, as should everyone else.
Justice and equality must start now otherwise, what have we achieved?
Rania Al Malky is the Chief Editor of Daily News Egypt.
