18 June 2020; MEMO: The family of Egypt’s former President Mohamed Morsi founded a pro-democracy organisation in London in his honour, launching it yesterday, one year after he died in an Egyptian court.
Morsi collapsed and died during a court session in which he was being tried on charges of espionage almost six years after he was ousted as president in a military coup in 2013.
The family of Egypt’s first democratically elected civilian president established the organisation in cooperation with a number of public figures and in light of legal advice they are receiving from Toby Cadman.
Cadman is an established international law specialist in the areas of international criminal and humanitarian law, anti-corruption and human rights law.
Morsi was voted into office in 2012 in the country’s first democratic election that was held after longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak was ousted in popular protests a year earlier.
A member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi was removed from power by his then Defence Minister Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi who later imprisoned him and outlawed his party. Al-Sisi went on to become Egypt’s president and has since put in place laws which cement his rule over Egypt.
Tens of thousands of people have since been arrested and mass trials have been held with detainees being given no opportunity for defence. Rights groups estimate that 60,000 political detainees are being held in Egypt in overcrowded cells with no access to healthcare of basic amenities.
