News / Egypt

Egypt court sentences 72 to jail for 'instigating violence'

Thursday, 31 March 2016 5:56 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 31 March 2016 5:55 PM ]

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood defendants stand behind the bars during their trial in Cairo on June 16, 2015. (AFP photo)

An Egyptian court has jailed scores of members and supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood party on the charge of instigating violence in the country, PressTV reports.

The court in the city Zaqaziq, located northeast of the capital Cairo in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiya, issued its ruling on Thursday, sentencing 72 Brotherhood members to three years in jail.

The court, presided over by Nassim Bayoumi, said the convicts had breached Egypt’s protest law and incited clashes with security forces during anti-government demonstrations. Ten defendants won acquittals.

The verdicts are the latest against members of the Brotherhood as Egypt continues with a heavy-handed crackdown on the party and other anti-government activists around three years after the country’s first democratically elected president Mohammed Morsi, a prominent leader of Brotherhood, was deposed from power.

Morsi, along with thousands of others, have received harsh sentences from courts in Egypt while thousands more remain in custody without any hearing.

A court on Wednesday handed down lengthy prison terms to 23 Brotherhood supporters over their alleged role in a deadly protest following the overthrow of Morsi in July 2013.

Rights campaigners have fiercely criticized the former army chief and current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of triggering flagrant abuse of human rights in Egypt since he took office in 2014.

Sisi has reportedly ordered the closure of numerous NGOs over alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Many of those organizations were documenting state crackdown on dissent. A total of 14 international organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, on Wednesday denounced Egypt’s stepped-up questioning of rights workers.

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