The former Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, has been freed, while hundreds face the death penalty.
Several prisoners in Egypt are awaiting the death penalty despite having been children when they were arrested. They include Irish citizen Ibrahim Halawa, who faces a death sentence in a trial alongside 493 other people, and Hatem Zaghloul, who was sentenced to death as a juvenile.
According to figures collated by Reprieve, nearly 2,000 people have received death sentences in mass trials, while nearly 900 people continue to face the death penalty. The figures are available on request.
“As Hosni Mubarak goes free in Egypt, thousands of prisoners still languish in horrific prison conditions. Many face the death penalty on charges relating to protests, in mass trials that make a mockery of due process. Some were arrested as children – people like Irish citizen Ibrahim Halawa, who has suffered terrible abuses in jail. The Sisi Government must now show that Egypt’s justice system is worthy of the name and release Ibrahim, and the hundreds like him.”
Harriet McCulloch, deputy director at Reprieve
Ibrahim Halawa
Ibrahim was caught up in the turmoil surrounding political protests while on holiday in Egypt. He was denied medical treatment for a gunshot wound to his hand following his arrest, and as a result, his hand is now permanently disfigured. The police beat him and wouldn’t let him see a lawyer.
Ibrahim awaits a mass trial and faces the death penalty if convicted. Reprieve is working with him and his family to secure his release.
Ibrahim was arrested along with his three older sisters, in the chaos of a protest in Cairo in August 2013. At the time of his arrest, Ibrahim was just seventeen years old, and about to start his final year of school.
Dear Ireland… read Ibrahim’s letter from prison in Egypt