A handful of Egyptian human rights organisations warned Egypt's presidency on Monday against employing "short-term security solutions" to secure the release of seven Egyptian soldiers kidnapped last Thursday in the Sinai Peninsula.
"We reject the portrayal of the current Sinai crisis as if the soldiers' release would be tantamount to wronging the people of Sinai," read a Monday joint statement released by eight Egyptian rights groups.
Last Thursday, seven security officers were kidnapped in Egypt's restless Sinai Peninsula: a conscript of the armed forces and six police personnel.
Following the incident, a security source revealed that the kidnappers had demanded the release of Sinai-based militants arrested almost two years ago.
The militants were convicted of killing five security officers and one civilian during a string of attacks in June/July 2011 on a police station in the city of Al-Arish and a North Sinai branch of the Bank of Alexandria.
A total of 25 individuals were charged in the case.
Rights organisations, for their part, say the militants' trial violated the law.
"Prisoners convicted of carrying out the attack on the Al-Arish police station were tried according to the emergency law in September 2012, even though the state of emergency was lifted when President Mohamed Morsi took office in June of 2012," the statement read.
Since its liberation from Israeli occupation 31 years ago, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula has suffered from serious underdevelopment and what residents describe as neglect by the government. Following Egypt's 2011 popular uprising, the peninsula has also suffered from rising levels of insecurity and lawlessness.
"We warn against the resort to the usual short-term security solutions to secure the kidnapped soldiers' release without addressing the root cause of the crisis, which would not have happened had the government not ignored the rule of law and calls by Sinai residents to release arbitrarily detained prisoners," the rights groups' statement continued.
It added: "The solution to the longstanding crisis in Sinai begins with ending the political and economic marginalisation of the people of Sinai."
The statement went on to call on the government to secure the soldiers' release without resorting to any form of "collective punishment" against residents of the peninsula.
Signatories of the statement included the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, the Nadeem Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture, the Hisham Mubarak Legal Rights Centre, the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, the Association of Freedom of Thought and Expression, and the ACT Centre for Development and Communication.
On Sunday, President Morsi announced that "all options" remained available to the state for securing the kidnapped soldiers' release, stressing that Egypt would "not be blackmailed" by the kidnappers.
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