Court orders conditional release of activist Amal Fathy, rejects appeal by satirist Shady Abu Zeid

A criminal court ordered on Tuesday the conditional release of activist Amal Fathy, while rejecting an appeal by satirical video blogger Shady Abu Zeid, both of whom are detained as defendants in the same case.

The Giza Criminal Court accepted an appeal submitted by Fathy against her continued detention as part of Case 621/2018, and ordered her conditional release, according to lawyer Taher Abul Nasr. However, the court also rejected a separate appeal submitted by Abu Zeid contesting his imprisonment, lawyer Azza Soliman told Mada Masr, which means that he will continue being held in remand detention as part of the case.

Apart from Fathy and Abu Zeid, Case 621/2018 involves a wide array of lawyers, activists and bloggers, including lawyers Sayed al-Banna and Ahmed Sabry Abu Alam; blogger Mohamed “Oxygen” Ibrahim; the head of marketing and distribution at the Maraya Publishing House and former member of the Popular Socialist Alliance Party, Ayman Abdel Moaty; activist Shady al-Ghazaly Harb; and April 6 Youth Movement member Sherif al-Rouby. The defendants face charges of joining an illegal organization and spreading false news.

Lawyer Ramadan Mohamed told Mada Masr that Fathy’s conditional release order is final, and cannot be appealed, according to Article 167 of the Criminal Procedure Code. However, Abul Nasr said that, in spite of the law, the prosecution has been known to appeal criminal court decisions, giving the example of an appeal against the conditional release order issued to activist Wael Abbas by State Security Prosecution earlier in December. The court later rejected the appeal and upheld its release order.

Fathy was arrested on May 11, along with her husband — head of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms Mohamed Lotfy — and their three-year-old son. Both her son and husband were later released, while she remained in custody over a video she had published on social media.

The video in question was posted on Fathy's personal Facebook account on May 9. In it, she criticized the crackdown on Egypt’s political opposition, discussed socioeconomic issues and recounted a recent incident of sexual harassment.

Fathy was handed a release order from the case (7991/2018) in June. However, she remained in remand detention as part of another case (621/2018), to which she was added on May 13, two days after she was initially arrested, on charges of joining an illegal organization and disseminating false news.

In September, she was handed a two-year prison sentence in Case 7991/2018, which comprised a one-year prison sentence for calling for the overthrow of the regime, and another one-year prison sentence, as well a LE10,000 fine, for spreading false news with the intent to harm national security. The court also ordered that she be released on LE20,000 bail while the verdict was being appealed.

Abu Zeid was arrested on May 6, and has been held in remand detention ever since, on charges of joining an illegal organization and spreading false news, also as part of Case 621/2018.

Fathy’s conditional release order came hours before her husband, Lotfy, was awarded the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights on Tuesday. The prize was awarded to lawyer Ragia Omran in 2017.

In June 2015, Egyptian authorities prohibited Lotfy from traveling, along with several other prominent rights activists and civil society workers who received travel bans in connection to their work.