Egypt courts sentence 110 in absentia over protests and 'riots'

Egyptian courts on Tuesday slapped 110 defendants with prison sentences ranging from two to 18 years over their involvement in unlicensed protests and violence.

A Cairo court jailed nine activists for two years for staging an unlicensed protest in central Cairo, a judicial source said.

The same court also handed down three-year sentences to 15 activists charged with unlicensed protesting and riots.

The activists were tried in absentia in connection to clashes that broke out between security forces and protesters in Cairo last November.

Earlier in the day, a Cairo criminal court jailed 63 anti-regime opponents for 15 years and five others for ten years in connection to violence that erupted during official celebrations of a military victory over Israel on 6 October 2013.

A court in the central Minya province also slapped 18 supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi with 18-year jail terms and $18,000 fine each for violence-related charges.

The defendants, who insist that the charges are politically driven, were tried in absentia.

On Monday, the retrial of the 150 defendants sentenced to death or life in prison by a Minya court was pushed back to January.

The defendants will remain in detention until they are brought to trial at the end of January 2015.

In August, human rights group Amnesty International warned that “show trials followed by mass death sentences are becoming a grim trademark of Egyptian justice.”

Said Boumedouha, deputy director of the organisation’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, said that mass sentencing was based on “flimsy evidence and followed deeply flawed proceedings.”

The statement came after a court in Minya sentenced 683 supporters of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood to death in late April.

A crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood after the 2013 ouster of former president Mohammed Morsi has seen thousands of the organisation’s supporters jailed.

‘Counterfeiting history’

As Egypt’s courts on Tuesday continued to imprison opposition supporters, a new school history textbook for use throughout Egypt provoked outcry after describing a separate opposition party as “unconstitutional.”

A new modern history is set to designate al-Nour Party, a mainstream salafi political party, as unconstitutional due to its religious basis.

Salah Abdel Maboud, a leading member of the party, denounced the decision, accusing Egypt’s Education Ministry of “counterfeiting history” and warning that the party would take the “necessary steps” against the body.

The Education Ministry, which is responsible for the national curriculum, denied that it had anything to do with the designation.

However, a spokesperson for the ministry confirmed the body’s stance towards Nour, explaining that it “is founded on religious bases, and therefore violates the laws governing parties according to the constitution.”