Minya court sentences 5 people to 15 years in prison for breaking curfew in 2013

The Minya Criminal Court has sentenced five purported Muslim Brotherhood members to 15 years in prison for violating the nationwide curfew imposed last August, the state-owned news site EgyNews reported on Monday.

The government imposed the curfew following the deadly dispersal of the Rabea al-Adaweya and Nahda Square sit-in camps that protested against former President Mohamed Morsi’s ouster. The curfew stayed in place from August 14 to November 12, 2013.

The Upper Egyptian city was hit particularly hard by the wave of unrest that swept the nation in the aftermath of the dispersal. The violence often targeted Minya’s significant Coptic population, with assailants attacking several churches and police stations throughout the city. The Muslim Brotherhood and the hardline conservative Islamist group Jama’a al-Islamiya were widely blamed for the surge in sectarianism.  

The Minya Criminal Court has gained international notoriety for the unprecedented harshness of its rulings in cases related to the violence. In April, the court sentenced 545 defendants to death for killing a police officer. Ultimately, the death penalty was only upheld for 37 of the defendants, while the remaining sentences were commuted to life in prison.

In May, the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie and 682 others were also sentenced to death by this court, again for allegedly killing a police officer. That ruling is still pending judicial appeal.

In addition to the death penalty, Badie has been sentenced to life in prison in three separate cases, and still awaits verdicts in other trials on similar charges of committing violent and terrorist acts.

Also on Monday, the Tanta prosecution detained four alleged Brotherhood members pending investigations into charges of rioting and possessing banners that “incited violence,” the state-owned Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported.

The banners bore the now-illegal icon of the four-finger salute to Rabea. The prosecutors said the defendants were also in possession of a digital camera.

Egypt's judges have issued more than 1,200 death sentences against opposition Islamists since Morsi's ouster. Lawyers representing Brotherhood leaders have decried the court proceedings as unfair.