Court renews detention of 700 in single ‘unprecedented’ session

A Cairo terrorism circuit court renewed the remand detention orders of around 750 people, whose charges were spread across more than 50 cases, in a single, 12-hour court session on Sunday. 

Lawyers said the scene was “unprecedented” and raised alarms over the flattening of due process and disregard for defendants’ rights, as well as the risk to their health and safety due to overcrowding in the courtroom and holding cells.

Eyewitnesses said that some of the defendants have serious health conditions, and that some of the female defendants were accompanied by young children. Some lawyers were also unable to enter the courtroom due to overcrowding.

Speaking to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity, one lawyer said that it was impossible in those circumstances for lawyers to make any substantial argument for the defense or be heard by a judge, “Who is the judge supposed to listen to? And which case file is he meant to look at?” the lawyer asked

All of the defendants present at the hearing had their remand detention orders renewed. Commenting on the legal process, the lawyer said that, “holding a court session for such a large number of defendants and renewing the detention of all of them makes this no more than a symbolic session. What is the point in lawyers making defense arguments, if in the end, the court will renew detentions in a way that violates the law?” 

Among the defendants whose detention orders were renewed on Sunday were former presidential candidate and Strong Egypt Party leader Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights gender researcher Patrick George Zaki, who has been in detention since February of this year, and lawyer Hoda Abdel Moneim. 

A few days ago, Abdel Moneim’s family and lawyer said they were filing a request to the public prosecutor to release her due to poor health and the urgent need for medical care. In response, the Interior Ministry issued a public statement asserting that Abdel Moneim was in good health. Witnesses said that she was transported from prison to the courthouse on Sunday in an ambulance. 

As for both Abouel Fotouh and Abdel Moneim, both have been held in detention facilities for longer than the two-year legal limit on remand detention without being released or referred to trial, the lawyer told Mada Masr. 

Both remain in detention due to the exploitation of a bureaucratic loophole often used to bypass the two-year legal limit on remand detentions, whereby release orders are issued for a defendant without being implemented, before the defendant is added to a new case, thus “refreshing” the period of their detention without trial. 

The same court — the third terrorism circuit at Cairo Criminal Court — is expected to hear detention renewals of around 650 people on Tuesday. The lawyer who spoke to Mada Masr expects a similar flurry of detention renewals. 

The family of detained blogger Abdel Rahman Tarek, known as “Mocha,” said on Sunday that he was on hunger strike in protest against being charged in a third case since his arrest in 2019, despite a court order to release him from custody last September, which was not carried out. Tarek’s lawyer, Nabeeh al-Genady, confirmed the strike to Mada Masr. 

According to Genady, Mocha appeared in front of the State Security Prosecution on December 3 and was interrogated on charges of belonging to a terrorist group and funding terrorism in Case 1056/2020, but was not questioned about specific incidents. He was issued with a 15-day remand detention order. Mocha, who is being held in Cairo’s Abdeen Police Station, began his hunger strike that same day.

This is the third case that Mocha has been included in since he completed a three-year sentence in prison and three years of parole, after being convicted in the 2013 “Shura Council” case, his lawyer explained.

After being released in 2016 on strict parole, Mocha was caught up in the sweep of arrests that responded to the September 2019 protests on the oft-deployed charges of “joining a terrorist group, spreading false news, and misusing social media.” He received a release order in March this year, which was never implemented. Mocha was then ordered detained in April in a new case, before receiving another release order in September, which was also not implemented for over two months until his reappearance on December 3 in a third case.

Mocha appeared in front of the State Security Prosecution in April and was charged in a new case, Case 558/2020, on the same charges. In September, a court ordered him released, and once again the release order was not carried out between then and his appearance at the State Security Prosecution more than two months later. 

The new case Mocha is charged in also includes Bread and Freedom Party member Mohamed Walid and activist Khaleel Abdel Hamid, according to Bread and Freedom Party deputy Elham Eidarous. Release orders were issued for the two detainees in August, but they were held in a police station in Suez before being moved to an unknown location in October, according to Eidarous. 

The state’s message, Eidarous told Mada Masr, is that “people who come in, won’t get out.” Eleven members of the Bread and Freedom Party, a leftist party still under establishment, have been detained since 2017. Eidarous says that more than a targeted attack on the party, this is part of a general crackdown on all politically active or democratic currents.