Egypt's leading activist gets 5 years; 2 others get 4 years
ABC News
An Egyptian lawyer says a court in Cairo has sentenced one of the country’s most prominent activists to five years in prison on charges of spreading false news
CAIRO -- Egypt on Monday sentenced one of the country's most prominent activists to five years in prison on charges of spreading false news, a defense lawyer said. The activist's former attorney and another activist were sentenced in the same case, each to four years.
Alaa Abdel-Fattah was first sentenced in 2014 on charges of taking part in an unauthorized protest and allegedly assaulting a police officer. He was released in 2019 after serving a five-year term but was rearrested again later that year, in a crackdown that followed anti-government protests.
At the time, he and many others were accused of disseminating false news, misuse of social media and joining a terrorist group — a reference to the banned Muslim Brotherhood, which authorities declared a terrorist organization in 2013.
Along with Abdel-Fattah, the Emergency State Security Court in Cairo on Monday also sentenced Abdel-Fattah's former lawyer, Mohammed el-Baker, and fellow activist Mohamed Ibrahim, also known as Mohamed Oxygen, to four years each, on the same charges. The three were tried together.
