Sabbahi demands new Protest Law after 15-year sentences

Popular Current leader and former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi demanded a new Protest Law on his Twitter account on Thursday. The call came a day after 25 people were sentenced to 15 years in absentia for demonstrating outside the Shura Council last year.

"Targeting young revolutionaries through unconstitutional legislation is unacceptable after two revolutions," Sabbahi tweeted. "We demand a new protest law that organizes [protests] and does not prevent or repress opposition."

On Wednesday, activist Alaa Abd El Fattah and 24 others were sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in absentia in the Shura Council case. Abd El Fattah and two others were arrested outside the Police Academy at Tora prison in Cairo while waiting to enter the court room.

Activists Mona and Sanaa Seif, Sara al-Sharif and Aida al-Kashef meanwhile organized a protest Thursday morning outside Qubba Palace. The four activists stood in silence holding banners denouncing the ruling against the Shura Council protesters.

On November 26 last year a number of protesters gathered outside the Shura Council, where the 50-member committee tasked with drafting the 2014 Constitution was meeting, to denounce articles in the Constitution enshrining military trials for civilians.

Police arrested 50, most of whom were later released, apart from Abd El Fattah and Ahmed Abdel Rahman, who were imprisoned for four months without trial.