Egyptian appeals court cuts, suspends journalists' jail terms

An Egyptian appeals court suspended a jail sentence on Saturday against the former head of the journalists' union for harbouring colleagues wanted by authorities and for spreading false news, judicial sources and a lawyer said.

Yahiya Kallash, Gamal Abd el-Rahim and Khaled Elbalshy were sentenced to two years in jail in November in a case which Amnesty International condemned as a further crackdown on freedom of expression in Egypt.

The appeals court on Saturday gave Kallash and the two board members a one-year suspended jail sentence.

Prosecutors had ordered that the three men face trial last May, amid efforts by Egyptian authorities to quell rising dissent against army general-turned-president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

The charges against them related to a police raid last May on the Journalists' Syndicate to arrest two opposition journalists who had sought shelter there from arrest.

Union officials said police stormed the building for the first time in the syndicate's 75-year history. The interior ministry denied that, but confirmed police had arrested the two journalists, Mahmoud El Sakka and Amr Badr.

Kallash had denounced the police raid, saying the government was "escalating the war against journalism and journalists".

Sakka and Badr, who are still awaiting trial, had criticised a deal between Egypt and Saudi Arabia which would have transferred two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

In January, Egypt's top administrative court upheld a ruling voiding the government agreement on the islands of Tiran and Sanafir.

Kallash's defence lawyer, Shaaban Said, said he considered Saturday's ruling satisfactory but he still planned to appeal to the Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest court.

In the Journalists' Syndicate election earlier this month, Kallash and Balshy both failed in their bids for re-election. Abdel Rahim was re-elected as a board member.

Rights activists accuse President Sisi of running an ultra-authoritarian regime that has violently suppressed all opposition since toppling Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.