Egypt looks to prosecute millions of non-voters
Low turnout for a sham election has made the government bristle
ASSEMBLY-LINE justice is nothing new to Egypt. Since 2013, when Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi led a coup against an elected government, judges have presided over trials with enough defendants to fill a jumbo jet. At a hearing in 2014 more than 500 people were sentenced to death for killing one policeman. But that exercise is Lilliputian compared with the latest labour of Egypt’s judiciary. On August 26th the state referred 54m people for prosecution over a single case.
This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Defendant number 54,000,000”
Middle East & Africa September 5th 2020
From the September 5th 2020 edition
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