The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has urged Egypt’s appeals court to overturn mass death sentences handed down by a lower court after what she termed an “unfair trial.”
Bachelet went on to criticise a law in the North African country that gives immunity to senior security forces.
The death sentences were issued against 75 people on Saturday, including prominent Islamist leaders, over a 2013 sit-in that ended with security forces killing hundreds of protesters.
If carried out, the sentences “would represent a gross and irreversible miscarriage of justice”, Bachelet said.
Defendants were denied the right to individual lawyers and to present evidence, while “the prosecution did not provide sufficient evidence to prove individual guilt”, she said in a statement.
