Alwaght-Egyptian officials have referred 438 backers of ousted President Mohamed Morsi to military courts less than two months after a law was passed allowing military trial of civilians, Press TV reports.
In the first case referred to a military court, 139 Morsi supporters are slated to be tried on charges of killing three policemen in the southern province of Minya in 2013.
In the second case, 299 Morsi backers are set for trial over the deaths of five people in the scuffles that broke out last year between police forces and protesters in the city of Damanhur, north of the capital, Cairo.
On October 27, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi issued a decree, saying that all “public and vital facilities” will be placed under military rule for the next two years.
The law ordered state prosecutors to refer any crimes at the aforementioned places to their military counterparts.
More than 11,000 people have been tried by Egypt’s military courts since the 2011 uprising that toppled the country’s former dictator Hosni Mubarak.
The Egyptian government has been cracking down on any opposition since Morsi, the country’s first democratically-elected president, was ousted in July 2013 in a military coup led by Sisi.
Rights groups say the army’s crackdown on the supporters of Morsi has led to the deaths of over 1,400 people and the arrest of 22,000 others, including some 200 people who have been sentenced to death in mass trials.
The UN Human Rights Council has repeatedly expressed concern over the Egyptian security forces’ heavy-handed crackdown and the killing of anti-government protesters.
