MINYA, Jan 18 (Aswat Masriya) – The South Minya Prosecution referred on Sunday 250 defendants accused of assault and vandalism to the military prosecution, as per a presidential decree issued last year.

The defendants are accused of breaking into three public facilities south of Minya; the post office, the supply administration and the youth administration.

The defendants were charged with breaking into the facilities, torching them, belonging to a terrorist group, violating the protest law, resisting the authorities and inciting violence, reported state television.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued on October 27, 2014 a new law which refers crimes committed against the state's public and "vital" facilities to the military judiciary.

The law, criticised by human rights organisations for expanding the jurisdiction of military tribunals on civilians, was passed shortly after the death of at least 33 security personnel in militant attacks in Sinai. 

The law can be applied on cases which have not yet been referred to court, even if the events took place before the law’s issuance.

Egypt's top prosecutor referred last December 139 defendants, believed to be Muslim Brotherhood supporters, to a military tribunal over the killing of a police officer and two policemen, as well as breaking into a police station in Minya and torching it.

Article 204 of Egypt's new constitution already allows referring civilians to military trials "in cases which represent a direct assault on armed forces institutions, their camps or anything that falls under their authority, alongside assaults on military or border zones, and military institutions, vehicles, weapons, ammunition, documents, secrets, public funds, or factories."

The article was strongly condemned by civil society organisations and a number of political movements before the constitution passed. 

No Military Trials for Civilians, a group campaigning against referring civilians to military tribunals, has rallied protests against this article as well as previous legislations which allow the military trial of civilians.