Alexandria protesters’ sentences upheld

Manshiya Appeal Court upheld a two-year prison sentence and a LE50,000 fine on Sunday for seven Alexandrian activists for breaching the protest law, privately owned al-Masry al-Youm said.

The activists include members of the April 6 Youth Movement.

Four of the activists, Omar Hazeq, Loay Qahwagi, Nasser Aboul Hammad and Islam Mohamadeen, are already in jail, while Moussa Hussein and human rights lawyers Hassan Mostafa and Mahinour al-Masry received had their sentences in absentia.

Al-Masry wrote on Twitter that she was feeling bitter that her friends, sentenced for the same crime as her, are in jail while she isn’t.

Al-Masry also wrote that she wished that at least her comrade Mohamadeen, who is a college student, could have had the chance to do his exams.

"Our friends will pay 2 years of their lives for freedom," she Tweeted.

Hassan Mostafa was previously arrested and jailed for a month in relation to the Khaled Saeed case in 2010.

According to Facebook page Free Hassan Mostafa, the Alexandrian activist was arrested again in January 2013 and was tortured inside prison and was put in solitary confinement for two weeks, during which he went on a hunger strike.     

The Alexandria Misdemeanor Court had ruled in early January against the seven activists for protesting without a permit in front of Alexandria Criminal Court last December during a court hearing in the trial of defendants KhaledSaeed.  

The controversial protest law was passed in November last year, and several activists have since been jailed under it.  

*Correction: The first sentence of this article originally stated that the verdicts were upheld on Thursday. This was corrected on February 17.