No to Military Trials for Civilians: Down with Military Rule

Statement by the Revolutionary Socialists

“They intended to commit terrorist crimes.” That is their supposed crime. And the punishment? Death. This, in brief, is the story of the eight young men opposing military rule who were sentenced to death yesterday by a military court in the so-called Cairo Cell case. The verdicts were issued without evidence or exhibits, in addition to life sentences and imprisonment for twenty others.

Some of the defendants in this case, including Sohaib Saad and Omar Mohamed, were abducted from the street by State Security on June 1 of last year. More than 30 days later, they appeared in Tora Prison, despite the Ministry of Interior denying their custody throughout this period.

These young men are the latest victims in a long series of military trials for civilians since the military coup that took place in mid-2013. The executioner-judge carries out rulings that express a savage desire for revenge, serving the whims of a deranged general who raises the banner: “I am the state, and the state is me.” He seeks to intimidate opponents from across the political spectrum—today targeting Islamists and tomorrow revolutionaries.

Through imprisonment, fines, and executions, the general aims to enslave the people, silencing any demands for freedom, justice, or liberation from dependency. Meanwhile, the capitalist elite grows more affluent, and the regime facilitates selling the nation’s soil to the most reactionary forces in the Arab world.
Yet the general fails to grasp that imperialist America once assassinated the revolutionary Che Guevara to stifle his struggle or that Stalinist agents assassinated the socialist leader Leon Trotsky in Mexico. Even in Egyptian history, a corrupt court sentenced two workers, Khamis and Al-Baqari, to death in 1952. What happened then? The struggle did not stop, and the tyrants ended up in the trash heap of history, while the memory of the revolutionaries continues to inspire millions of young people.

Your courts will only lead to resentment and anger, so do not deny yourself a false sense of security. No matter how much you believe the masses will not rise, they will inevitably revolt one day. The reasons are many: first and foremost, poverty, which is steadily eroding the living standards of large segments of the population, alongside the relentless violation of freedoms, repression, and persecution that affects everyone.

Until that day comes, revolutionaries must do more than merely express discontent. We must speak out loudly, rejecting your courts, laws, and constitution. We must struggle to end military trials for civilians, which spare no one. Even civilian workers at the Alexandria Shipyard Company are now being investigated by the military prosecutor for striking and have been detained for four days pending investigation. We must join the No to Military Trials campaign and all genuinely democratic forces, as these trials will not exempt anyone.

Let us expose the regime and its fascist military courts. Let us all hold fast to the flame of struggle. History teaches us that freedom requires great sacrifices, and we are no less capable than the people of other nations who have endured military rule but ultimately regained democracy through persistent and determined struggle.

To every fighter for freedom and justice: hold your ground and not let this crime go unnoticed. Do not stop fighting to halt and abolish the death penalty. This is a responsibility we all share toward every individual whose life is deemed expendable by the torturers of the so-called justice institution. At the same time, they lounge in their air-conditioned rooms.