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GENEVA / EGYPT EXECUTIONS REAX
STORY: GENEVA / EGYPT EXECUTIONS REAX
TRT: 1:00
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 5 JANUARY 2018 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, Palais des Nations
2. Wide shot, briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Liz Throssell, Spokesperson, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“We are deeply shocked that 20 people are reported to have been executed in Egypt since last week. On 2 January, five men who had been sentenced to death by an Egyptian military court were hanged in Alexandria.”
4. Med shot, journalist
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Liz Throssell, Spokesperson, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“On 26 December, 15 men convicted on terrorism charges were reportedly executed”
6. Wide shot, journalists
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Liz Throssell, Spokesperson, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“We are seriously concerned that in all these cases, due process and fair trial guarantees do not appear to have been followed as military courts typically deny defendant’s rights accorded by civilians courts”
8. Cutaway, journalists
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Liz Throssell, Spokesperson, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“Reports also indicated that the prisoners who were executed may have been subjected to initial enforced disappearance and torture before being tried.”
10. Cutaway, journalist
11. Wide shot, journalists
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has expressed its deep shock at the reported executions of 20 people tried by military courts in Egypt.
The executions took place between 26 December 2017 and 2 January 2018, and appear to have followed neither due process nor fair trial guarantees, according to OHCHR.
OHCHR spokesperson, Liz Throssell, told reporters in Geneva Friday (5 Jan) “we are deeply shocked that 20 people are reported to have been executed in Egypt since last week.”
Throssell added “on 2 January, five men who had been sentenced to death by an Egyptian military court were hanged in Alexandria,” she said. “ On 26 December, 15 men convicted on terrorism charges were reportedly executed.”
Civilians should only be tried in military courts in exceptional cases, Throssell said, adding that these trials appeared not to have afforded the full guarantees of article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Egypt is a State party.
She said “we are seriously concerned that in all these cases, due process and fair trial guarantees do not appear to have been followed as military courts typically deny defendant’s rights accorded by civilians courts.”
Spokesperson said “reports also indicated that the prisoners who were executed may have been subjected to initial enforced disappearance and torture before being tried.”
Four of the Alexandria five persons had been convicted in relation to an April 2015 explosion in the city of Kafr al-Sheikh that had killed three military recruits and injured two others. The 15 men reportedly executed on 26 December had been found guilty by a military court of killing several soldiers in Sinai in 2013. Throssell said that despite the security challenges facing Egypt, “executions should not be used as a means to combat terrorism.”
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is calling on Egyptian authorities to reconsider its use of the death penalty and to take all measures to ensure that violations of due process and fair trial are not repeated in the future.
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