Egyptian NGO calls for death penalty in terrorism crimes

Cairo – An Egyptian non-governmental organization called for more strict penalties against terrorist groups, including death penalty for those who are involved in violent attacks.

The Justice and Development Organization (JDO) for human rights has given alarm calls to warn of the silence on crimes committed in the style of ISIS, a terrorist organization  (also known as Daesh) and on crimes stirring sectarian strife in Egypt.  Lately, several criminal incidents have been perpetrated by dangerous criminals who seemed to be inspired by ISIS rabid violence.

JDO spokesman, Zidan El-Quinaiy, reported a number of those criminal and sectarian incidents copying ISIS-styled murder and arson atrocities, which have only meant to strike terror into the Egyptian society. This was manifested in the slaughter spree that occurred in some parts of Egypt. Some examples were reported such as a slain driver in Al-Gharbiyya province, an Egyptian Copt named ‘Yusuf Lamiy’ in Alexandria, a doctor in Asyut Province, another Copt in Tanta city, and finally a laborer at the public market in Quena Province. All these crimes appeared to be exactly copying ISIS-styled killing. ‘Zidan’ pointed out that this means that the society is plagued by sleeper-cell terrorists who adopt the militancy of this death cult, especially among those folks who associate themselves with the Islamic ultra-conservative ideology or the Salafists.

The JDO stressed that the perpetrators of Quena incident, who themselves lived in the restive Sini for some time, were greatly influenced by the actions of the ISIS-affiliated group called the State of Sinai (also reads as Wilayat Sinaa).  The JDO demanded that ISIS-styled murder crimes must carry death sentences with no appeal and be flagged as terror crimes punished by death sentences which is to be approved by official religious verdicts (or Fatwa).  The JDO also called for the immediate amendment of all the terrorism laws that will set death as punishment on ISIS-affiliated crimes and keep their perpetrators at bay wherever they are.
In Quena Province, it was such a timely decision made by Judge Ahmed Abdurahman, the Chief Justice and the Provincial General Prosecution Attorney, of the transfer of all the accused of ISIS-styled murder of Hani AbdelFattah Abu-Elmajd, a local villager at a livestock marketplace, to the Criminal Court. The three transferred convicts were Abdulhaseeb Bashari Ibraheem, Nasrudin Bashari Ibrahim, and Bashari Ibrahim.The case file No. 13071/2017 was then handed over to Mohammad Reda Shaukat, Chief Justice of Quena Court of Appeals and Member of the Council of Heads of Courts of Appeals, in order to decide the time and place for presenting and handling the case which is to be soon.

The JDO expressed its full confidence in the fairness and integrity of the Egyptian judiciary while reiterating the necessity of issuing and carrying out death sentences on those who reinvent the style of ISIS brutality in Egypt. The JDO also suggested that there has to be a nationwide broadcasting of the executions through the multiple media outlets to warn against the grave consequences of ISIS terrorism from which even the judges were not safe as the terrorists had targeted a hotel for judges in Arish city.