In a letter to The Times newspaper on Monday, 2 November, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC criticised the British government’s hosting of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt and cited the death sentence against Sondos Asem as an example of his attack on the rule of law.
“The government’s decision to invite General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the president of Egypt, to visit the UK leaves me with a deep sense of disquiet,” Baroness Kennedy, a prominent human rights lawyer wrote.
Kennedy accused Sisi of corrupting the justice system in Egypt, and referred to the death sentence issued against Sondos Asem in May.
She said that Sisi “debased the rule of law so that mass trials of swift duration have been held and the death penalty passed on whole lists of people, who were simply employed in the last government.
“This has included one young woman who was tried in absentia while undertaking a masters degree at Oxford, and now lives here under the threat of a death sentence.”
“General Sisi ousted Egypt’s first freely elected president through a military coup. Whatever the shortcomings of the previous Morsi government, the right place to have contested such shortcomings would have been through democratic political processes and the ballot box,” she added.
“To consolidate his power, Sisi has been responsible for the murder of at least 1,000 unarmed demonstrators, used torture and rape on dissidents, imprisoned tens of thousands of political opponents (including scores of elected parliamentarians), and employed extra-judicial killing as a means of eliminating those who have challenged his rule. All these crimes have been well documented by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other groups.”
“To entertain General Sisi at this time is an affront to British values. I urge the government to withdraw its invitation,” Kennedy concluded.
