Leading opposition figure Hisham Kassem handed six month prison sentence, LE30,000 in fines

Leading opposition figure and publisher Hisham Kassem was sentenced to six months in prison and charged with fines amounting to a total of LE30,000 by a court on Saturday.

For three defamation charges filed by unionist and former Labor Minister Kamal Abu Eita, the Cairo Economic Misdemeanors Court sentenced Kassem to three months of imprisonment, fining him LE20,000 and another LE10,000.

He was handed another three-month sentence for a fourth charge of verbally assaulting a public employee at the Sayeda Zeinab Police Station, Kassem’s lawyer, Nasser Amin, told Mada Masr.

Kassem was detained on August 21 after Abu Eita filed libel and defamation charges against him on the back of a highly publicized spat between the two that began in July. In the process of his prosecution, officers at the Sayeda Zeinab police station added charges to Kassem’s case, accusing him of verbally assaulting them during his hours of detention at the station.

A broad range of political figures have come out in support of Kassem and called for his release, including Free Current members, a range of parties in the Civil Democratic Movement opposition alliance and a number of rights organizations.

During the Saturday court session, Kassem was acquitted of a fifth charge of harassing authorities through a social media post.

An appeal has already been filed against the court decision, Amin said, and the court session was scheduled for October 7.

On September 12, Kassem suspended a hunger strike he began earlier in the month to avoid raising suspicions that he was trying to influence the court decision, according to his lawyer.