An Egyptian court has sentenced 683 to death for an attack on a police station that left one officer dead.  That is not a typo – 683 are sentenced to die.  And if more proof were needed that Egypt’s flirtations with democracy were over and the country was hurtling towards another brutish military dictatorship, another court banned a group that played a large role in the “Arab Spring”.

Families of the defendants were outraged outside the court in the Nile city of Minya.  One of those condemned is Mohammed Badie, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.  It’s the first verdict against Badie in the several trials he faces for violence after the military deposed Muslim Brotherhood member Mohammed Morsi from the presidency last year.  The Brotherhood has since been declared a terrorist group.

 “The court has displayed a complete contempt for the most basic principles of a fair trial and has utterly destroyed its credibility,” said Amnesty International’s Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, who warned that Egypt's judiciary “risks becoming just another part of the authorities' repressive machinery.”

Only 50 of the 683 defendants are actually in custody.  But the others have a right to a retrial if they voluntarily hand themselves in to authorities.  They’re described as villagers from around Minya, where a mob attacked a police station on 14 August 2013.  A defense attorney says 60 percent of the accused have provided evidence that they weren’t even there when the station was attacked.  But that didn’t seem to matter.

“In each trial, the defense were not able to present their case, the witnesses were not heard,” said Amnesty’s Mohammed Elmessiry, “and many of the accused were not brought to the courtroom.”

The same judge upheld the death sentences of 37 of 529 men he ordered to hang last month.  That brings the total number of death sentences to 720, with the rest commuted to 25-year prison terms.

Meanwhile in Cairo, another judge banned the “April 6 Youth Movement”, a Leftist student organization that led the 2011 Arab Spring protests that toppled Hosni Mubarek’s dictatorship.

“It shows that it's not just the Islamists who are being targeted, it’s also liberal groups like us.  And (the government) will continue all the way to close down all democratic forces,” said April 6’s Abd Allah.  “And it’s just the beginning.”