Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take to prevent children in Egypt from being included in mass trials and sentenced to death.

It remains a long-standing policy of the United Kingdom to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle. We have regularly made our position clear to the Egyptian Government.

We have particular concerns in Egypt regarding Article 122 of the Child Law in Egypt and cases involving the death penalty and juveniles. Our Embassy in Cairo has raised our concerns with the Egyptian authorities and asked them to take action to release political detainees who remain imprisoned and to review mass judicial decisions.

I raised our concerns in my interim Autumn Statement on Human Rights Priority Countries on 22nd October 2019. Our ambassador in Cairo repeated these concerns in a meeting with the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 23 October 2019.