CAIRO — Egyptian rights lawyers and organizations told Al-Monitor about the dire legal violations that the Egyptian authorities are committing by issuing court decisions to extend the pretrial detention of political prisoners without allowing them to appear before a judge. These organizations have called for the release of all those whose detentions were extended in the past few weeks, specifically since early April when Egypt began implementing its preventive measures to counter the spread of the coronavirus. 

Rights lawyer Islam Salameh told Al-Monitor, “During its May 6 sessions, the Cairo Criminal Court decided to extend the pretrial detention of 700 political detainees; none of them appeared before the judge in court.”

He revealed another legal violation, which is “not allowing lawyers to attend the court sessions or present requests for bail or conditional release. The court orders were issued in less than a minute.”

Ramadan Ahmad, a rights lawyer and member of the defense committee handling several prisoners in the 2019 Case No. 930, known as “Coalition of Hope,” which includes several journalists, politicians and activists, told Al-Monitor, “In [another] May 5 session the [Cairo] Criminal Court extended the pretrial detention of more than 560 people who were not brought from their cells to appear before court and whose defense cases were not heard.”