"The mass sentencing underscored the severity of an ongoing campaign by Egypt’s military-backed leaders to silence opposition here, eight months after a military coup ousted Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected leader. It was unclear what evidence prosecutors presented to support Monday’s ruling, which came after only two court sessions. A defense attorney in the case said that the defense was never given access to the evidence and that none of the defendants — or even their attorneys — were allowed in court for the verdict." Washpost
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Impressive. Presumably these people belonged to the MB pl
529 sentenced to death because of 1 dead policeman
earlier:
1 policeman sentenced to 10 years for some 600 MB supporters dead on Raaba
Several sources said that only 23 of the 529 were MB members. The others were "usual suspects" by-catch.
Posted by: b | 24 March 2014 at 01:31 PM
This is the United States' long-time client in the Middle East. Among it's first actions after the ouster of Morsi was blockading Gaza once again.
W. Edwards Deming contrasted trying to chop the tails off Gaussian distributions in an effort to improve the quality of production with moving the entire distribution in the direction of better quality. This philosophy is what produced the modern Japanese auto industry, and the failure to embrace it led to the downfall of the American auto industry.
Trying to chop the tail off the MB, with 500 executions or 1000, will not do any good at all. And perhaps the men in the shadows, in the US and Egypt, know this very well, and simply want to perpetuate a state of anarchy in Egypt.
Posted by: William Herschel | 24 March 2014 at 02:27 PM
WH,
Obama and the R2P crowd/neocons helped Morsi get into power. They failed to understand just what Morsi and his supporters were or what the Egyptian Army and rank and file Egyptians would do when the inevitable happened. We're seeing the same thing happening to the neocon inspired revolution in Ukraine/Crimea. None of these 'revolutions' were in the US national interest. Michille Obama was just in China proclaiming the 'universal' right to internet access. I'm sure the PRC looks forward to hosting Freedom House and National Endowment for Democracy backed NGOs.
Posted by: Fred | 24 March 2014 at 04:29 PM
To all and not referring to anyone on this board: So, how' s that exporting democracy thing going for you neo-whatever's you are?
You know, it's kind of funny that Americans think the only real democracy is the kind we practice here. Europe is filled with Socialist Democracies of all stripes but most American insist they aren't REAL democracies because they have implemented some form of Socialism making them ONLY Socialist and nothing more.
"American Exceptionalism" is a joke. In most studies that measure America against the world using empirical data alway ranks America pretty low. The one category we are alway #1 is in military expenditures.
Hmmmm.
Posted by: Richard Armstrong | 24 March 2014 at 05:44 PM
Nothing is ever quite so gory as secular modernity. Thus the Egyptian Reign of Terror begins. The Officers Club on Zemalek is the new HQ of the Jacobin Club.
Posted by: jr786 | 24 March 2014 at 05:48 PM
I'm hearing from friends in Palestine that Fatah "strongman" Muhammad Dahlan from Gaza may have had a hand in killing the Brotherhood protestors in Rabi'ya Square in Cairo. I can't be sure but it would mark a long line of using proxies to kill demonstrators the world over. In the 1990s in Egypt the Mubarak government turned to Abu Nidal to do the nastier side of his COIN programme.
I fear that executing more than 500 party members however is going to backfire. Better to make an example of a few properly guilty ones than creating a ridiculous number of martyrs all in one go. Of course they won't actually kill this many - they are simply trying to make the point that active membership of the Brotherhood will no longer be tolerated.
Posted by: MartinJ | 24 March 2014 at 08:01 PM
That is absolutely disgusting.
Hopefully most of the sentences will be commuted.
Posted by: crf | 24 March 2014 at 08:23 PM
I am a Canadian. But don't take the following as criticism, but observation:
America still leads the world in scientific progress. It's military is the surely most capable as a tool to ensure the country's stability and peace, if politicians wanted to see it in those terms. America has the best university system by a long shot. But all these things are relatively undervalued by those with influence: this rot started with Reagan, was stabilized by Bush and dipped a bit with Clinton. But under Bush and Obama it has accelerated. The country is not utilizing these superior minds and institutions to do the most good at home or around the world. And they are taken for granted. There is no real emphasis to solve new problems like drought, electrification of industrial processes, carbon-free electricity. And even old problems don't inspire politicians anymore like improving the highway system, reducing poverty, improving college or trade-schools, and so on.
Too much emphasis on the Army, Power, Control, War, Enemies, Wealth, Class, Race, Old People, Conflict, Democracy and Messianism.
Posted by: crf | 24 March 2014 at 08:59 PM
If they want (the Egyptian military rule) to truly dissuade future membership in the MB in Egypt, execution isn't the best way. Sex change operations is the way to go. Administer sex change operations to this 500 and in less than a decade, maybe half that, the MB will no longer be able to actively recruit and its membership will decline precipitously. A bizarrely intriguing Spanish movie starring Antonio Banderas entitled The Skin I Live In is a how-to guide. Don't make them martyrs, make them their own worst enemies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EolQSTTTpI4
Posted by: kyooshtik | 25 March 2014 at 06:23 AM
I doubt that these death sentences will be carried out, certainly not all of them. The defendants have rights to appeal the sentences, and the government is likely to demonstrate mercy or clemency.
But the sentences do send a message, and act "to encourage the others". Egypt's military and present government are sending a clear message that they will not tolerate Islamic fundamentalism a controlling role in government or society. The Muslim Brotherhood greatly overstepped their limits, when they moved rapidly to consolidate power and impose their vision of society on the country. They proved not to have moved beyond the behavior that had them banned decades ago, and showed their claims of moderation to be a smoke screen. The military now seems to have decided that they must break the organization, and that deposing Morsi was insufficient on its own.
Posted by: jon | 25 March 2014 at 08:51 AM
Two days ago in an interview - in Persian - the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament stated something to the effect that "we get democracy, we like democracy, we think democracy is a good things but why insist on destroying religion as part of it?"
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 25 March 2014 at 11:18 AM
All:
I think the deplorable thing in Egypt is the evident absence of any rule of law as well as representative government.
In India we have representative government but not rule of law.
In Hong Kong we had rule of law but not representative government - while the English were running the show over there.
I personally would have preferred to live in Hong Kong from among the 3.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 25 March 2014 at 02:08 PM