Emergency court hands researcher Ahmed Samir Santawy 3 years’ jail time

Researcher Ahmed Samir Santawy was sentenced on Monday to three years in prison in a retrial on charges of publishing false news, lawyer Ahmed Ragheb told Mada Masr. 

“Everyone is in shock,” said Suheila, Santawy’s partner, who has been campaigning for his release from Europe. The first ruling was overturned, with a lack of evidence to substantiate the charges, she told Mada Masr, explaining that Santawy’s family and friends did not expect the court to hand him three years, almost the maximum sentence for the allegations against him.

Monday’s ruling by an emergency state security misdemeanors court cannot be appealed, due to the court’s exceptional nature, though Santawy’s family and lawyers said that they would continue to pursue all possible methods to secure his release.

Santawy has already been in prison for a year and a half. In December 2020, upon his return to Egypt during a vacation from his postgraduate studies at the Central European Univeristy, Santawy faced questioning in relation to his research on abortion and Islam.

He was then forcibly disappeared for several days in February, until he was brought before the State Security Prosecution, which ordered him held pending investigation into terrorism and false news charges, similar to those often levied by prosecuting authorities against many activists and political figures.

His lawyer Nabih al-Genady told Mada Masr at the time that Santawy said he was held in detention in Cairo’s First Settlement, where security officers interrogating him hit him in the face repeatedly, and asked him about his relationship with Ultras al-Ahlawy (a politically active group of Al-Ahly football club fans) and the Muslim Brotherhood, although Santawy asserted that he did not belong to either of the groups. 

He was ultimately convicted of publishing false news, and sentenced to four years in prison by an emergency court in June 2021. After lawyers filed grievances directly to the office tasked with confirming emergency courts rulings, the case was sent for readjudication in February.

Santawy’s defense team now plans to submit grievances to the office once again, said Ragheb. If the verdict is confirmed by the office, Ragheb said that the defense team could also approach the presidential amnesty committee; an official body that recommends to the president names of prisoners eligible to be excused the remainder of their sentences, and which has recently secured the release of a number of political prisoners.