Cairo ( CNN ) An Egyptian court triggered an international uproar Monday , confirming a death sentence for 183 defendants . The defendants were convicted of murdering 11 police and two civilians in August 2013 , Egypt 's state-run MENA news agency reported . Those deaths came in an attack on a police station . It followed a massive , deadly crackdown by Egyptian forces on supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsy . `` Today 's death sentences are yet another example of the bias of the Egyptian criminal justice system , '' said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui of Amnesty International . `` These verdicts and sentences must be quashed and all of those convicted should be given a trial that meets international standards of fairness and excludes the death penalty . '' `` Issuing mass death sentences whenever the case involves the killing of police officers now appears to be near-routine policy , regardless of facts and with no attempt to establish individual responsibility , '' Sahraoui added . `` So far , 415 people have been sentenced to death in four trials for the killing of police officers , while the case against former President Hosni Mubarak , involving the killing of hundreds of protesters during the uprising , has been dropped . To date no security officers have been held to account for the killing of 1,000 protesters in August 2013 , '' the organization said on its website . Amnesty International opposes the death penalty altogether . Thirty-four of the 183 defendants were tried in absentia . All are permitted to appeal . In July and August 2013 , hundreds of demonstrators -- perhaps more than a thousand -- were killed by Egyptian forces in what Human Rights Watch said `` probably amounts to crimes against humanity . '' `` The authorities have failed to hold even a single low-level police or army officer accountable for any of the killings , much less any official responsible for ordering them , and continue to brutally suppress dissent , '' the group said . It issued a 188-page report titled `` All According to Plan : The Rab ' a Massacre and Mass Killings of Protesters in Egypt . '' Since August 2013 , 343 police personnel have been killed , Egypt 's Ministry of Interior says . At the heart of all this is the battle for control of Egypt that has gripped the country for four years . In February 2011 , strongman Mubarak was toppled . Morsy , a longtime fixture in the Muslim Brotherhood , became Egypt 's first democratically elected president in 2012 . But he was deposed a year later in a military coup after mass protests . Also in 2013 , Egyptian authorities cracked down on former Morsy supporters . In December of that year , Egypt 's interim government officially declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization . ( Hamas , the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza , is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood . ) Egypt 's current government , led by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi , has called for a `` religious revolution '' and asked Muslim leaders to help in the fight against extremism . He has launched a war against terrorism focused particularly on the country 's Sinai region where an extremist group recently pledged allegiance to ISIS . CNN 's Salma Abdelaziz reported from Abu Dhabi , journalist Sarah Sirgany from Cairo , and CNN 's Josh Levs from Atlanta .
The defendants were convicted of murdering 11 police officers and two civilians . A judge sentenced the men to life in prison with no chance for parole until 2048. `` Mass death sentences '' in police killings are becoming routine in Egypt `` regardless of facts , '' Amnesty International says .