The numbers alone are staggering: an Egyptian court in the city of Minya on Monday sentenced 529 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood to death for their alleged role in the killing of a policeman. They were convicted after just two court sessions, most in absentia and without being allowed to present a defence. On Tuesday a further 683 members of the Brotherhood, including its leader, Mohammed Badie, will face similar charges in the same city. Although many of these sentences are likely to be commuted when the defendants reach the last stage of Egyptian justice and are brought before the grand mufti, legal experts cannot recall a court coming to such draconian conclusions on such a scale. It will send a shudder through those who once cheered on the Egyptian revolution and imagined the country was on the path to democracy.
There are now so many political prisoners in Egypt that its jails are close to bursting. By the government's own estimate, 16,000 people have been locked up in the crackdown that followed the military coup in July last year in which Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt, was ousted. Prisoners are packed up to 40 to a cell and are routinely beaten. The thousands rounded up in the past eight months consist largely of members of the Brotherhood, and almost all of its leaders, but include secular revolutionary activists such as Alaa Abd El Fattah, who was bailed on Tuesday, as well as reporters. Twenty journalists were arrested after being accused of spreading misinformation and aiding terrorists.
To say that Monday's death sentences were ordered by the military leadership as part of the brutal counter-revolution would credit army chief and defence minister Abdul Fatah al-Sisi with a level of control he may not have. There is little evidence, in this case, of direct interference from the army in the rulings of the court. A more likely scenario is that parts of the judiciary are fully signed up to the army-led campaign of political repression. They felt threatened by Mr Morsi's government and have rallied round the old establishment, the "deep state" of shadowy bureaucrats created by the deposed dictator, Hosni Mubarak.
The response of Egypt's most important ally to the crackdown against the largest of Arab revolutions has been equivocal. In October, the Obama administration – which famously failed to describe the events that toppled Mr Morsi as a coup because US law forbids Washington from giving money to "any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree" – announced it would withhold some military and civilian aid to the country, including tanks and fighter aircraft. Congress has since passed legislation requiring that Egypt make progress on democracy and human rights before the aid, worth $1.5bn, can be released. However, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, has declared his intention to unblock the aid as soon as he feels he can. "We want this interim transitional government to succeed. We are committed to try to help make that happen," Mr Kerry told a congressional hearing earlier this month. "I'm hopeful that in the days ahead I can make the appropriate decision. And when I say days ahead, I mean short term."
Mr Kerry's desire to restore the US subvention to Egypt stems in part from his reluctance to upset another gambit he has in the Middle East: the push to restart the Israel-Palestinian peace process. Israel has been lobbying hard for the release of aid to Cairo's government in recent months because it sees security co-operation between the countries as a major line of defence against Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual ally in the Gaza Strip.
The judge in Minya may have designed his ruling in order to help General Sisi quell the voices of the opposition. If so, he is deluded: his draconian decision will only help push the country deeper into crisis. Before Mr Kerry can even contemplate fully restoring aid, he must demand concrete steps towards democracy and human rights.
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