Egypt’s ruling military council said Thursday it would review court verdicts handed down to hundreds of civilians detained since it took power after President Hosni Mubarak stepped down on Feb. 11.
The decision was meant to address growing criticism of the armed forces, whose authorization of military trials against civilians has angered many of the democracy advocates who propelled the 18-day uprising in Tahrir Square here.
Protesters hailed the military as a guardian of the revolution in the days following Mubarak’s ouster, but Egyptians have grown increasingly concerned by the persistence of human rights abuses and the slow pace of the military’s efforts to investigate former officials.
In a two-line statement released on its Facebook page, the military council “affirmed that it will review the cases of all young people who have been prosecuted” in the past several weeks, and also ordered the retrial of one young man whose mother published an appeal in the newspaper of the Wafd Party on Thursday.
Democracy advocates offered cautious praise for Thursday’s announcement, but warned that the meaning of the decision was far from clear.
Heba Morayef, Egypt researcher for Human Rights Watch, called the decision “an important step,” but cautioned that it does not specify whether the verdicts will be reviewed by a civilian or a military court.
“If they are retried in a military court there is no guarantee there will be a fair trial,” Ms. Morayef said. “All these people need to be retried in a civilian court and all peaceful protesters who were arbitrarily arrested should be immediately released and their charges dropped.”
More than 200 protesters have been detained, tortured or put on trial before military courts in the past several weeks, rights advocates said. The Front for the Defense of Egyptian Protesters, an umbrella of civil rights groups, estimates that at least 5,000 military trials, of groups of five people or more at a time, have taken place since Mr. Mubarak stepped down. The vast majority of those cases cover theft, assault and other charges, and not political detainees.
Earlier this week, the military sentenced Maikel Nabil Sanad, a 25-year-old blogger, to three years in prison for “insulting the military establishment.” It was unclear if his sentence will also be subject to review.