My Irish brother faces the death sentence in Egypt – so why do the UK and EU support their courts?

A Northern Irish government body – Northern Ireland Cooperation Overseas (NI-CO) – has carried out refurbishments of juvenile courts in Egypt, supplying waterproof chairs for children to sit on during trials, benches for mass hearings, and steel bars for 'secure waiting areas'

My brother was arrested at a protest in 2013 when he was just 17 years old (EPA)

I’ll never forget the day my brother Ibrahim, an Irish citizen, was taken away by Egyptian security forces. We were visiting family in Cairo during the school holidays, in August 2013, when Ibrahim joined one of the protests sweeping the country. Egyptian forces broke up the protest he attended, fired on demonstrators, and arrested nearly 500 people. Ibrahim was shot and taken into custody. He was just 17.

Ibrahim never committed a single violent act; his only ‘crime’ was exercising his right to peaceful, free expression. Nevertheless, for the past four years, he has been detained in a series of grim Egyptian prisons, tortured by prison guards, and subjected to a chaotic mass trial of 494 people. Based on no evidence, Egypt has charged Ibrahim with violent crimes that carry the death penalty, and tried him alongside hundreds of adults – despite the fact that he was a juvenile when he was arrested.

Two days ago, the judge delayed Ibrahim’s trial for the 37^th time in three years. This latest postponement came despite so-called assurances between our Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, and the Egyptian President. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had promised the Taoiseach that at this 37^th hearing the trial would end, and that Ibrahim would soon be sent home to Ireland.

Today, Ibrahim remains in prison, facing a death sentence, as he has for the past four years.

Ibrahim has been through four years of hell, and his daily reality in prison is horrifying. Our ageing parents, at home in Dublin, are sick with worry for their only son. My sisters and I have lost the chance to see our baby brother grow up.

Ibrahim’s ordeal is far from rare. In recent years, Egyptian courts have consistently tried children as adults on charges that carry the death penalty, and have sentenced children to death. Hundreds of people have been tried simultaneously in other mass trials, a practise the UN has said “cannot possibly [meet] even the most basic requirements for a fair trial.” Egyptian police and prison guards are also famous for torturing and even ‘disappearing’ detainees.

Knowing all of this, it appalls me to know that the European Union and European governments – including the UK – are working closely with the Egyptian criminal justice system.

The human rights organisation Reprieve, which is supporting Ibrahim, has discovered that the EU is offering €10m in support, training and equipment for Egypt’s courts. As part of this EU project, a Northern Irish government body – Northern Ireland Cooperation Overseas (NI-CO) – has carried out refurbishments of juvenile courts in Egypt, supplying waterproof chairs for children to sit on during trials, benches for mass hearings, and steel bars for “secure waiting areas”.

I wrote to NI-CO more than eight months ago, asking them to reconsider their work, and requesting a meeting to discuss Ibrahim’s case. I am still waiting for their response.

Reprieve has also found that the UK government has provided nearly £2m in aid for security projects in Egypt, “including support for policing, the criminal justice system and the treatment of juvenile detainees.” The UK has refused to provide any details about these projects, including which arms of the Egyptian government are involved.

Apparently, none of this assistance has required Egypt to fulfil any conditions relating to improving human rights.

To be sure, the Egyptian criminal justice system needs reforming, and as a European, I support the idea that Europe should play a role in making Egypt more democratic. But it can’t be right that the EU and the UK are providing unconditional assistance to Egyptian institutions that sentence children to death, torture detainees, and try people – people like my brother – in unfair mass trials.

If the EU and UK want to assist Egypt’s judiciary and police, Egypt should first have to commit to specific human rights reforms: the immediate release of my brother, the transfer of all juveniles out of adult courts, and an end to mass trials. The EU, the UK and NI-CO should have required Egypt to take these simple steps from the beginning, and it shocks me that they did not do so. Without obtaining these commitments, the EU and the UK are granting Egypt a fig leaf, allowing it to pretend at reform while continuing to subject people like Ibrahim to human rights abuses.

My brother needs to come home to our family now, and Egypt must bring an end to its use of the death penalty against juveniles. The EU, the UK and NI-CO should now suspend their assistance to Egypt’s criminal justice system until Ibrahim is free, and until Egyptian children no longer face the gallows.