In 2017, 112 civilians were sentenced to death in Egypt’s military courts, nearly double the previous year’s figure of 60. While alone, these numbers, recorded by Egyptian Coordination for Rights & Freedoms and the Initiative for Personal Rights, seem cause for concern, they are just one example of a generally troubled legal system in Egypt. Governments have enabled military courts to be used for civilian trials since the 1960s, yet according to CNN, some human rights lawyers have claimed they are unconstitutional. There seems no sign that this procedure will draw to a close, as President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who took power in 2014, believes the military courts will help to stabilize Egypt’s security.

It is the details occurring behind the scenes that suggest the extent to which the system is being misused, and how ordinary Egyptians are paying the price. Four men in the city of Kafr El Sheikh were sentenced to death for killing three military cadets during a bus bombing in April 2015. The case came in the jurisdiction of the military courts, following a presidential decree giving the military authority over public places and land up to 2 kilometres from public roads. The way this case was handled appears deeply problematic, one of the family’s lawyers calling it “a classic example of how the judicial system here has become a joke” and an Amnesty International statement calling the investigation deeply flawed. The men were accused by the court of being part of the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned religious and political group. These accusations were based on confession obtained under torture. In September 2017, a testimony in a completely separate case claimed a known criminal was actually behind the Kafr El Sheikh attack. Lawyers pleaded for a retrial, but were denied. The men were killed this month.

CNN tracked 11 civilian cases over the past eight months. In each one, families claim they disappeared for weeks and were then charged using confessions allegedly obtained through torture – a clear violation of their due process rights protected by the constitution. The Egyptian government denied such methods, yet this is not the first time questions have been raised regarding mistreatment. In September 2017, Human Rights Watch released a report stating that there was systematic torture of political prisoners in Egypt with routine use of “techniques including beatings, electric shock, stress positions, and sometimes rape.” They saw no system of accountability in place, with President el-Sisi having “effectively given police and National Security officers a green light to use torture whenever they please.” Their report was based on interviews with former detainees, with all but one stating they informed prosecutors about the abuse. None saw any sign of actions being taken in response. The Human Rights Watch is not alone in its conclusions. The UN Committee Against Torture stated in its 2017 report that it had reached “the inescapable conclusion that torture is a systematic practice in Egypt” and “perpetrators of torture almost universally enjoy impunity.”

In August 2017, President Donald Trump announced that 300 million dollars of US aid would be withheld until Egypt improved its human rights record. If change is to occur, the international community needs to take similar actions. Other nations need to demonstrate that they will not tolerate the arbitrary and cruel treatment Egypt is conducting in place of a fair judicial system. This is clearly a policy enforced from the top down, and thus, ordinary Egyptians may not have the power and ability to step in. Therefore, it falls to the wider world, nations with economic and political influence, to play their part.