EGYPT’S STOCK EXCHANGE SUFFERS HEAVY LOSSES AFTER CONTROVERSIAL 529 DEATH SENTENCES
In less than an hour after the beginning of the trading session, the market capital of the stock exchange market lost EGP 600 million, ONA news agency reported. The main stock index EGX30 fell by 0.69%/58 points, hitting 8,392.70 points.
The index of small and medium shares EGX70 recorded 0.11%, hitting 633.69 points, while the largest index EGX100 fell by 0.01%, hitting 1,106.41 points, Middle East Monitor (MEMO) reported as quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).
Egypt’s largest Islamic organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, condemned the court’s recent decision who sentenced to death to 529 pro Morsi supporters.
“A pro-military court passes a mass execution sentence against anti-coup politicians in two fast sessions, so fast there was no time to even read the list of defendants being convicted,” the official statement said.
Earlier Monday, the Minya Criminal Court (Upper Egypt) sentenced 529 defendants to death without allowing defense arguments, witness testimonies or defendant statements.
Hamza Zawbaa, a leading member of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), denounced the verdict against the protesters, pointing that “the death sentence against politicians and revolutionaries means the Revolution has entered a new phase that requires new methods”.
Meanwhile, Ali Khafagi, FJP Youth Secretary in Giza (west of Cairo), said the death sentences against politicians and revolutionaries amount to a horrendous crime of “genocide”.
He further pointed that there are officers who kill peaceful demonstrators with bullets and judges who kill peaceful protesters with blatantly unjust death sentences.
For his part, Mohamed Mahsoub, leading member of the Wassat Party, said that “death sentences against 529 Egyptians for allegedly attempting to kill a police officer, who in fact did not die, are certainly a death certificate for the Egyptian justice system itself as well as the last remaining vestiges of the judges’ honor and reputation”.
Separately, Mohamed Seif El-Dawla, leftist politician, noted that “wholesale executions are the latest results of the military’s Road Map of the Future, a very special kind of justice never seen before by mankind, that will be registered in the name of Egypt’s junta in all the books of law and history”.(T/ P04/P03)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
