Egyptian Canadians will rally today Friday June 25th, 7 PM @ Parliament Hill to denounce the recent death sentences that took place in Egypt and demand Canada's government to take a stance against them.

On June 14th 2021, Egypt's highest appeals court, the Court of Cassation, upheld the death sentences for 12 people, including former MPs, government ministers, and physicians.

Unfortunately, the Canadian government has remained silent since then. Such silence from Canada and the international community is giving a green light to Egypt's military dictator, Abelfattah El-Sisi, to carry out the executions, and deliver more death sentences to activists and opponents in the future.

The 12 men whose death sentences were confirmed could face execution imminently if no pressure is made on Sisi.

The trial has been described by Amnesty International as "grossly unfair" and that they "cast a dark shadow over the country's entire justice system". Human Rights Watch described it as a "mockery of justice" and demanded to "void their execution and put an end to Egypt's profligate use of the death penalty".

Those whose death sentences the Cassation Court upheld include former MP, Mohamed al-Beltagy, former Minister of Youth, Osama Yassine, dentist and former speaker of Freedom and Justice Party, Ahmed Arif, and university professor, Abdelrahman al-Bar. 4 of those sentenced death, Mohamed and Mostafa Al-Faramawy, Ahmed Farouk, and Haitham Al-Arabi, were arrested 2 weeks before the Rabaa dispersal (the event the trial case is all about) happened.

The trials are related to the Rabaa Massacre that took place on August 14th 2013, in which the military regime killed more than 1,000 protestors who held a 40+ day sit-in in Rabaa Square. The massacre has been described by Human Rights Watch as "one of the world's largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history". Instead of holding the military and security forces responsible for the massacre, the judiciary in Egypt trialed the organizers of participants of the sit-in, and handed 12 death sentences and more than 31 life-in-prison sentences to them. Mohamed Elbeltagy, a former MP and one of those sentenced to death for participating in the sit-in, had his daughter, Asmaa Elbeltagy, killed during the sit-in dispersal. The judiciary in Egypt has never investigated her death or brought any of her murderes to justice.

We hereby demand that you as an MP, and the Canadian government, to issue a statement to denounce the recent death sentence, and perform diplomatic pressure on Sisi's regime to halt the executions.

References:

- Amnesty International, "Egypt: Death sentences upheld for 12 defendants after shameful mass trial", 2021/06/14

- Human Rights Watch, "Egypt: Commute Death Sentences for Rab'a Protestors", 2021/06/18

- Human Rights Watch, "All According to Plan: The Rab'a Massacre and Mass Killings of Protesters in Egypt", 2014/08/4