Former Guantanamo detainee who was resettled in Slovakia arrested upon arrival in Egypt

Egyptian security forces arrestedAdel Fotouh Ali al-Gazzar on Monday as he returned to Egypt for the first time in more than 10 years. al-Gazzar was resettled in Slovakia by the Obama Administration in January 2010 due to fears of persecution or imprisonment in Mubarak’s Egypt, where he was sentenced in absentia in 2001 by an [...]

Thousands of Egyptian civilians tried in military courts since February 2011

IPS reports that thousands of Egyptian civilians, including protesters who helped topple the authoritarian regime of president Hosni Mubarak, have been tried in military courts without due process. Defendants are denied access to legal counsel, but receive assistance to defence lawyers appointed from a pool of army-approved attorneys. attorneys may be given as little as [...]

Boumediene: the record so far

SCOTUS wraps up the Gitmo-habeas cases after the US SC Boumediene ruling. Although detainees have won a clear majority of the habeas trials, any actual release from captivity has come to depend almost entirely on what the Executive Branch is willing to do or able to arrange. Key facts: * Of 38 cases in which [...]

Egypt Detains 17 After Deadly Blast

Egyptian police detained 17 suspects after a bomb blast killed 21 people outside a church in Alexandria, Al Jazeera television reported, citing unidentified security officials. The explosion early on New Years Day injured more than 90 people, according to the Health Ministry. President Hosni Mubarak blamed the attack on “foreign elements.” The Interior Ministry said [...]

Compatibility of UN Security Council and EU [terrorist] Black Lists with European Convention on Human Rights requirements

Two important documents on this topic appeared last week. The first one is a new report by ECCHR on terrorism listing, written by Gavin Sullivan and Ben Hayes with a foreword by Martin Scheinin. After outlining the ways that blacklisting breaches fundamental rights, reviewing the key case law, analysing the broader political impacts and problems [...]

Contribution: Khaled Said and the Egyptian emergency law

Writing for the Foreign Policy website, Soha Abdelaty discusses the death of Khaled Said, the 28-year-old man  who died while being arrested in Alexandria on June 6, in the context of Egypt’s semi-permanent (and recently renewed) emergency law: In many ways, the case of Khaled Said is tragically symbolic of everything that is wrong with [...]

Italy: Minister revokes imam’s political asylum

Italy’s interior minister Roberto Maroni revoked the political asylum granted to a radical Islamist preacher after he was jailed on terrorism charges. Egyptian-born imam Abu Imad will be deported as soon has served a 44-month sentence which he began last month, Maroni said. “When this individual has finished serving his sentence, he will be expelled [...]

Comment: Egypt’s cosmetic changes to the emergency law don’t justify its prolongation

In a rare burst of public relations activity, the Egyptian embassy in London circulated emails last week about the latest extension of the country’s emergency law which has been in place since 1967 (apart from a short break around 1980). According to the government the resolution before parliament asking for the extension “includes for the [...]

Egypt parliament extends state of emergency

[JURIST] The Egyptian Parliament on Tuesday voted to extend the country’s state of emergency for two years. Despite the two-year extension, parliament voted to limit the application of the emergency laws only to cases of terrorism and drug trafficking. In a speech [text, PDF; in Arabic] to parliament, Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif [official profile] [...]

Egypt ‘Hizbullah cell’ convictions marred by torture

The Guardian reports that twenty-six Arabs have been sentenced to prison in Egypt after being convicted of planning terrorist attacks on ships and tourist sites on behalf of the Lebanese Shia organisation Hezbollah, which claimed it was seeking to support Palestinian resistance to Israel in the Gaza Strip. The emergency state security court in Cairo [...]