Egyptian military court jails 104 dissidents

By Gamal Abdel Moez

MINYA, Egypt (AA) - An Egyptian military court Wednesday sentenced 104 dissidents to jail for alleged violence following the August 2013 violent crackdown of Egyptian security forces, according to defense lawyers.

The Aug. 14 Rabia and al-Nahda crackdowns came in the wake of the military coup that July.

Lawyers Khaled Komi, Alaa Tawfiq, and Mohammed Samir El-Farra told Anadolu Agency that the military court sentenced 70 of the defendants to 25 years in prison and 14 others to seven years.

They added that the same court, in a separate case, sentenced 34 opponents of the regime to 25 years in prison and 20 others to five years in prison.

The court acquitted one defendant of the charges.

Egyptian authorities have launched a relentless crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood since the military unseated elected president Mohamed Morsi – a Brotherhood leader – in July 2013.

In the three years since Morsi’s ouster, security forces have killed hundreds of his supporters and jailed thousands.

In 2014, President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, a former army chief who led the military to oust Morsi, approved legislation allowing individuals accused of committing violations against state institutions to be referred to military courts.

The move was widely criticized by local and international rights organizations, which expressed concern that defendants would not receive fair trials before military tribunals.

Hundreds of supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected leader, were killed in August 2013 when security forces violently cleared their sit-in at Cairo’s Rabia al-Adawiya Square.