Pro-Morsi judge jailed in Egypt for 'illegal protest'

Egypt's attorney-general on Monday sentenced a judge to 15 days in jail for participating in a protest in support of ousted president Mohamed Morsi.

In a statement, attorney-general Hesham Barakat said he ordered that Hassan al-Naggar, a senior judge at the Cassation Court and a former governor of the Nile Delta province of Sharqiya under Morsi, be jailed for 15 days on charges of staging a protest and blocking a road in Cairo.

Al-Naggar and several other protesters were detained outside a shopping mall in eastern Cairo.

According to the statement, protesters blocked the road and chanted slogans critical of the army.

The statement said that al-Naggar turned out to be a member of the pro-Morsi "Judges for Egypt" movement.

The Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram reported that the protest was “allegedly led by members of the Muslim Brotherhood”, a group banned as a “terrorist organisation” in Egypt in 2013.

According to al-Ahram's English-language website, the disciplinary committee of the Supreme Judicial Council has fired El-Naggar and other members of the judiciary for “being engaged in politics and for advocating for the Muslim Brotherhood”.

Authorities have been cracking down hard on Morsi's backers since his overthrow by the military in mid-2013.

Morsi himself is standing trial on multiple charges, including espionage and jailbreak.