The deprivation of liberty of Messrs. Mohamed Khirat Saad Al-Shatar; Hassan Ezzudine Malek; Ahmed Ashraf Mohamed Mostafa Abdul Warith; Ahmad Mahmoud Shousha; Ayman Abd El-Ghani Hassanin; Esam Abdul Mohsen Afifi; Essam Abdul Halim Hashish; Farid Aly Galbt; Fathy Mohamed Baghdady; Mamdouh Ahmed Al-Husseini; Medhat Ahmad El-Haddad; Mohamed Ali Bishr; Mostafa Salem; and Murad Salah El-Desouky is arbitrary, being in contravention of articles 9, 10 and 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and articles 9 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and falls within categories I and III of the categories applicable to the consideration of the cases submitted to the Working Group. [Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Opinion 27/2008 (EGYPT) adopted on 12 September 2008, para 85]

The Working Group then requested, over a year ago, "the Government of Egypt to take the necessary steps to remedy the situation of the above mentioned persons and to bring it into conformity with the standards and principles set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."

These 18 individuals were part of a group of 26 leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, arrested in December 2006 and January 2007 by the Egyptian State Security Intelligence. They were charged in January 2007 with membership of a banned organization and provision of arms and military training to University students. However, on 29 January 2007, the Cairo Criminal Court questioned the detainees and then issued release orders for all 26 of them, stating that there was no evidence against the detainees and that the extension of the detention period was not justified. The Judge specifically called on the Executive authorities to respect his decision.

The Ministry of Interior failed to comply with this ruling and issued administrative detention orders for the 26 individuals, then on 4 February 2007, the President of the Republic acting in his capacity as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, ordered that the detainees be tried by the Supreme Military Tribunal of Heikstep, Cairo. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention considered "that, in principle, military tribunals should not try civilians. The Human Rights Committee has also expressed concern that these tribunals as well as State Security Courts show no guarantees of independence."

On 24 April 2007, the Cairo Criminal Court acquitted for the second time 17 of the above-mentioned detainees, in response to an appeal filed by their relatives and overruled the State Prosecutor's decision to freeze the detainees' assets. The authorities did not carry out the acquittal decisions and ordered instead that the military trials begin on 26 April 2007.

On 15 April 2008, the Supreme Military Court sentenced the above named 12 individuals and 5 others to sentences ranging from 3 to 10 years, acquitting the rest. Five months after this, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted the Opinion cited above, stating that the detention of these 12 individuals was arbitrary, because Egyptian Military Courts do not offer the guarantees to a fair trial set out in article 14 of the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights (ICCPR) and the Government's failure to comply with court orders for release on two occasions violates article 9 of the ICCPR.

Today's decision by the Military Court of Appeals to confirm the sentenced issued in April 2008 therefore contradicts this opinion adopted by the Working Group, demonstrating that Egypt's Military courts can in no way be considered independent. It also means that the 17 people mentioned above have been detained arbitrarily for nearly 3 years.

This court decision comes in the context of a campaign of mass arrests and detentions of political opponents to the Egyptian Government by the authorities in Egypt, targeting in particular leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters. This is seen by many observers as an attempt to weaken the chances of potential candidates for the 2010 Egyptian parliamentary elections, remembering that in 2005, the Muslim Brotherhood won 88 out of 454 seats in Parliament, making it the largest opposition bloc in Parliament. The 17 individuals referred to above were indeed arrested in the wake of the results of the last election; the prolonging of their detention can be seen as a pre-emptive move by the authorities before the upcoming 2010 elections.

Alkarama will inform the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the new developments in this case and will request that they again remind the Egyptian authorities to conform to their international obligations and to effectively cooperate with the United Nations Special Procedures.