adminCAIRO. — An Egyptian court yesterday sentenced 33 supporters of the ousted president Mohamed Morsi to six years in jail over charges of violence during unauthorised protests, state-run Ahram newspaper reported. The Islamist defendants were accused of violent acts during clashes between the backers and opponents of Morsi in the coastal city of Alexandria last December. They were also accused of assaulting security forces, belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, and joining protests without official approval, the report said.
Last November, the military-installed interim government issued a protest law that bans gathering or demonstration without prior approval. In December, the authorities declared the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation.
The court also ordered the defendants to pay a fine of around US$7 173 each. The verdict can be appealed. Since Morsi’s removal by the army, his supporters have been in continuous protests calling for his reinstatement. On March 24, a criminal court in Upper Egypt sentenced 529 people to death over charges of assaulting police stations last year. The mass death sentence, the biggest in the Egyptian history, drew criticism from Western countries and human rights organisations.
Meanwhile, another Egyptian court yesterday turned down a plea for bail by jailed Al-Jazeera journalists, who denied links with the Muslim Brotherhood in a trial that has sparked international condemnation.
The journalists, who have spent nearly 100 days in jail since their arrest, are charged with spreading false news and supporting the Islamist movement of deposed president Mohamed Morsi.
“Please, get us out of jail, we are tired. We’ve been suffering in prison,” Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, the Egypt bureau chief of Al-Jazeera English, told the judges.
He and his seven co-defendants, dressed in white prison uniforms, were briefly allowed out of the caged dock to address the court, in what Fahmy’s lawyer, Khaled Abu Bakr, described as “an unprecedented move in the history of Egypt’s criminal courts”.
The Al-Jazeera trial, in which 20 defendants stand accused, has sparked an international outcry and fuelled fears of a media crackdown by the military-installed authorities. Australian reporter Peter Greste also pleaded to be released on bail, telling the judges “we only desire at this point to continue to fight to clear our names outside prison”.
“We would like to emphasise that we are more than willing to accept any conditions that you impose on us,” he added.— Xinhua/AFP.
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