Human rights organizations have renewed their call for the cancellation of Egypt’s law on protests, which opponents view as a government tool to crack down on political freedoms.
Thousands, mainly supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsy, have either been prosecuted or sentenced to jail for breaking the law which stipulates prison terms and fines for protests organized without prior clearance from security.
In a joint statement on 30 December, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Front Line Defenders, condemned prison sentences issued two days earlier against a number of liberal activists over charges of breaking the protest law.
The organizations said they “strongly condemn the two-year jail sentence handed down by the appeal courts, sitting in the New Cairo Police Academy, on Sunday 28 December 2014 for Yara Sallam, Transitional Justice Officer at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) and 23 other young activists, including Ms. Sanaa Seif, a member of the “No to Military Trials for Civilians” movement and sister of blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah, for allegedly violating Egypt’s controversial Protest Law.”
The statement slammed the protest law, saying it has increasingly been applied to suppress and jail political activists and rights advocates.
“The judgement and sentence in this case is yet another example of the Egyptian judiciary effectively shutting down the democratic means by which citizens can question and/or criticise the current regime,” read the statement.
The organizations called for immediately releasing the defendants and replacing the protest law in a way that conforms with the freedom of assembly.
