Witnesses to Shaimaa al-Sabbagh's killing face fresh Egyptian court ordeal
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Version 0 of 1. An Egyptian court is set to hear an appeal on Saturday in the case of 17 eyewitnesses, including the human rights lawyer Azza Soliman, who went on trial after testifying in the police killing of an unarmed activist in January. Prosecutors lodged the appeal in May after the 17 witnesses were acquitted at an initial trial in Cairo. They had been charged under a law enacted in 2013 that criminalises street protests held without an Interior Ministry permit. Related: Egyptian law in the dock as Shaimaa al-Sabbagh witnesses go on trial | Jared Maslin All had offered testimony over the death of the poet Shaimaa al-Sabbagh, who was killed when police fired at a group of unarmed demonstrators marking the fourth anniversary of the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak. Her death in daylight on a central Cairo street highlighted an upsurge in the use of lethal force against protesters by Egypt’s security forces. Egyptian rights activist say the prosecution of the witnesses illustrates the role of the judiciary in a broad clampdown on defenders of human rights and political opponents of the military-backed government. “This is a big mistake the prosecutor made. The prosecutor is continuing in this mistake,” said Soliman, the founder of a women’s rights organisation, the Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance. She had been eating lunch in a cafe looking on to Talaat Harb Square when the shooting took place, and later volunteered to give evidence as a witness. “My case means that the rule of law has become weaker and weaker in Egypt. This is the message,” she said in a phone interview on Thursday. “I am a witness. I am not a member of this political party. I was not a member of this demonstration.” Unlike Soliman, the majority of those initially charged in the case are members of a small socialist political party that staged the January demonstration in which activists attempted to carry wreaths to Tahrir Square, the symbolic centre of the revolution that toppled Mubarak. The hearing comes after another court sentenced a police officer to 15 years in prison over Sabbagh’s killing. The officer, Yassin Mohamed Hatem Salahedeen, was convicted of actions that “lead to the death” of Sabbagh, a charge considered less severe than murder, as well as wounding other demonstrators. That conviction is a rare moment of accountability in a country where more than a thousand others have died when police have forcibly dispersed protests over the past two years, with few prosecutions of security forces. Sabbagh’s death was a high-profile event that resulted in unusually harsh criticism of the state from Egypt’s official political class and press. The top state-owned newspaper published a front-page editorial with a stern condemnation of the killing and a call for accountability. An iconic photo of Sabbagh’s last moments, her face streaked with blood, embracing a man attempting to help her, went viral in Egypt and in the international media. Soliman’s defence attorney, Salah El Saman, said the prosecution’s case for an appeal was “weak”. However, he said in a phone interview: “We don’t have an independent judiciary, unfortunately.” Since the 2011 uprising that ended Mubarak’s three decades of rule, Egypt’s security forces have often used deadly force in reaction to demonstrations. More than 800 people died during the 18 days of the initial uprising. Instances of lethal force surged after the military deposed elected president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. The new military-backed government engaged sweeping clampdown on Morsi’s supporters, including the killing of more than 800 people in one day during the dispersal of a protest camp in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square. Throughout this period of unrest, successful prosecutions of police and security officials have been rare. “The sentence against al-Sabbagh’s killer would serve justice but past convictions of police have been reversed on appeal, meaning there has been zero accountability for killing protesters,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement. |