Egyptian Human Rights NGOs React to Verdict
Conviction without trial a flagrant violation of basic
principles of justice
HMLC, EIPR, and NCRVV, March
15, 2003
Press Release
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Hisham Mubarak Law Center:
Tel/fax: (202) 575 8908- E-mail: hmlc@link.net
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Egyptian Initiative for
Personal Rights: Tel/fax: (202) 524 0166- E-mail: eiprcairo@hotmail.com
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Al-Nadeem Center for
Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence: Tel/fax: (202) 577 6792-
E-mail: nadeem@intouch.com
The Hisham Mubarak Law Center (HMLC), the Egyptian
Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) and the Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation
of Victims of Violence expressed astonishment and outrage today over the
decision by a judge to impose harsher sentences on people convicted of
consensual homosexual conduct in the famous “Queen Boat” case. The
organizations also condemned the judge’s conduct of the case as a mockery of
due process—effectively, a conviction without trial.
Twenty-one out of fifty defendants were found guilty of
the “habitual practice of debauchery” by the Qasr al-Nil Court of
Misdemeanors this morning and sentenced to three years in prison, to be
followed by three years of police probation. In the first “Queen Boat”
trial, before an Emergency State Security Court in 2001, those defendants had
received sentences of one to two years. The judge today revised the verdicts
to impose the maximum penalty.
The verdict marked the end of a second ordeal for the
defendants, who were subjected to inflammatory publicity during the first
trial. The organizations said the latest proceedings, in which defense lawyers
were not allowed to present their case, represented a flagrant and scandalous
violation of internationally- recognized principles of due process.
The three human rights groups had observed all the
hearings in the case since July 2002. The trial was postponed five times,
since officers of State Security Intelligence (mabahith amn al-dawla),
summoned by the Court to be cross-examined by defense lawyers, consistently
failed to appear. However, instead of fining the officers or issuing a warrant
demanding their appearance, Chief Judge Mohammed Hassan decided to punish the
defendants.
The judge scheduled a verdict without allowing defense
attorneys to perform oral arguments or even to submit briefs in writing. The
judge also delivered today’s verdict without hearing the testimony of any
witnesses.
Background
Thirty-one defendants were arbitrarily arrested on the
Queen Boat floating restaurant on 10 May 2001. They were joined on the same
night by people who were picked from the streets until the total number of
defendants reached fifty-two. Defendants were kept in incommunicado detention
for three days, during which they were subjected to torture later documented
in official prosecution and medical reports—though no investigation into the
acts of torture was ever carried out. All defendants were later referred to an
exceptional court established under Egypt’s Emergency Law. On 14 November
2001, the Emergency State Security Court of Misdemeanors acquitted twenty-nine
defendants and sentenced twenty-three others to between one and five years in
prison.
In June 2002 the presidential Office for the Ratification
of Verdicts cancelled the guilty and innocent verdicts of fifty
defendants—including twenty-one of those convicted—and ordered their
retrial before an ordinary misdemeanors court. Prisoners were released after
paying a bond of 500 LE.
Hearings in the retrial were held on 27 July, 7
September, 12 October, 2 November, 21 December and 25 January. The Chief Judge
postponed the case at each hearing, in the absence of State Security
Intelligence officers who had been called as witnesses. However, in violation
of the principles of fair trial, the judge proceeded to a verdict without ever
hearing the case.
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