Egypt jails prominent blogger and activists for breaking protest law

CAIRO, Egypt — Alaa Abdel Fattah, one of the most prominent voices of Egypt’s 2011 revolution, has been sentenced to five years in prison for violating a protest law deemed “draconian” by rights groups.

He was sentenced alongside more than a dozen other activists and a student linked to a protest against a constitutional reform that would allow civilians to be tried in military courts in November 2013.

Abdel Fattah’s case was closely followed by the activists and revolutionaries who first led calls for the removal of then President Hosni Mubarak four years ago. A blogger and activist, he became one of the leading figures of the revolution and a guiding voice in the turmoil of the years that followed.

Abdel Fattah was sentenced at a retrial on Monday for 25 defendants arrested for the protest, which took place outside Egypt’s upper house of parliament.

Eighteen of the defendants received three-year sentences, while a further four were given 15-year terms in absentia.

Abdel Fattah was sentenced to 15 years in jail last June after being tried in absentia, despite presenting himself at the courtroom. In June 2014, the sentence was thrown out and a retrial ordered for him and the others detained during the protest.

He has been on hunger strike since October last year, but moved to a partial strike and began consuming juices for health reasons earlier this month.

Also sentenced to five years was Ahmed Abdelrahman, a student who worked as a security guard. He was given five years despite claiming not to have been involved in the protest at all.

Abdelrahman claimed to have been walking by when he saw two young female protesters being set upon by a group of men. He was arrested when he tried to intervene, and was found with a kitchen knife in his bag — a fact that led to extra time being added on to his sentence.

Two of the activists sentenced were members of the Constitution Party — the party founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohammad ElBaradei.

Khaled Daood, the party’s current leader, said the sentences were unprecedented.

“Our kids never used to go to jail for three and five years, never have we seen these kinds of sentences before,” he said.

“This is sending us a negative message: stay at home don’t take part in any political activity, don’t express your opinions peacefully otherwise you will go to jail. Of course it’s discouraging for many young people to take part in politics.”

When the judge read the verdict, those present in the court chanted “down, down with military rule” and “free revolutionaries, we will continue the journey.”

The chants eventually gave way to clapping as the detainees were led from the cages. Family members and friends wept at the news.

The verdict comes just a day after former general now President Abdel Fattah el Sisi said in a speech that he would release wrongly detained young people.

"I told them I don't deny there might be innocent youths in prison,” he said, adding, "Over the next few days the first group of our youths in detention will be released.”

Human rights lawyers have argued that the protest law violates the constitution, passed in January 2014, that enshrines the right for citizens to peacefully assemble, and organize protests once they notify the authorities.

Human Rights Watch denounced the law before it was passed in October 2013.

“This draft law would effectively mandate the police to ban all protests outright and to use force to disperse ongoing protests,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the Middle East and North Africa division at the time.