Egyptian blogger Shadi Abu Zaid sentenced to six months over satirical video
A month after he was released from prison, Egyptian satirist and blogger Shadi Abu Zaid was sentenced to six months in jail for insulting government officials, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CJP) confirmed on Monday.
An Egyptian appeals court handed the sentence to Abu Zaid last month, but the news did not become public until last week when his sister revealed in a Facebook post that he had returned to jail.
"It is shocking that Egyptian authorities would re-imprison blogger Shadi Abu Zaid, who was finally released last month after spending more than two years in pretrial detention," CPJ Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator Sherif Mansour said in a statement.
"Authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Abu Zaid and make sure that journalists can work freely."
Abu Zaid, a comedian who featured on a now-banned satirical show with a famous sharp-witted puppet called Abla Fahita, was first arrested in May 2018. He spent more than two years in pre-trial detention for charges including "membership of a banned group" and "disseminating false news".
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His most recent sentence stems from a 2016 video when he handed inflated condoms to security forces as balloons, celebrating Police Day, which coincided with the anniversary of the 2011 uprising on 25 January.
Abu Zaid's lawyer, Nasser Amin, told CPJ that the legal case over the video started when he was in jail over other charges, causing him to miss most of his hearings and lose his right to appeal.
"Egyptian authorities should immediately and unconditionally release blogger Shadi Abu Zaid, and cease jailing members of the press for their work," CPJ said in a statement.
Abu Zaid's sister, Roula Abu Zaid, announced his second arrest publicly on Saturday in a cautious social media post, saying that the family is still following legal procedures.
"Shadi is doing well, thank god, physically and mentally," she said. "I am not writing this news to make you worried, but to clarify [the situation] to all the people who noticed his disappearance from social media and tried to reach out to Shadi."
Since ascending to power after a 2013 coup, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has embarked on an uncompromising campaign of repression, criminalising virtually all forms of dissent and snuffing out political opposition of any ideology.
According to rights groups, the Egyptian government has jailed more than 60,000 dissidents, charges that Cairo denies.
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