Egypt court reduces controversial sentences against female protesters

An Egyptian appeals court on Saturday reduced harsh prison sentences given to 14 young women for protesting in support of the country's ousted Islamist president, reducing them to one-year suspended sentences, a defense lawyer said. 

The lawyer, Al-Shimaa Saad, said the court ruling means the women will soon be released following more than a month in custody.

The 14 women were originally sentenced to 11 years in prison after being convicted on charges related to an Oct. 31 protest in support of ousted President Mohamed Morsi.

The initial sentences handed down late last month caused an international and domestic outcry.

Human Rights Watch called the sentences "blatantly political" and said the court had violated the right to free trial, by failing to allow witnesses to testify in the women's defense, and providing little evidence for the charges they faced.

Saad said the court also reduced the sentences of seven teenage defendants, who were originally given prison terms until they turned 18. The appeals court gave the teenage girls three months probation.

"Thank God the girls will be going home. That is what we cared about," said Saad. "But the ruling today is still a conviction, a sentence they don't deserve."

The 14 women appeared in white headscarves and shirts, many of them holding roses — an apparent symbol of peacefulness. The minors sat on the benches among the lawyers. The court session was tense, with arguments breaking out between the lawyers and security forces in the room before the opening.

The families were not allowed to attend the session, while scuffles broke out outside the room between supporters and opponents of Morsi.

Saad said the lawyers will still appeal the decision before Egypt's highest appeals court, the court of Cassation, asking that the convictions be overturned completely.

The women and girls, who belonged to a newly established group called the "7 am Movement", held a protest on Oct. 31 in support of Morsi in the coastal city of Alexandria. Police dispersed the protest and arrested the women and girls as well as one man, Human Rights Watch said. The one man was released.

Six other men accused in the case were sentenced in absentia to 15 years.

Gamal Eid, a human rights activist, said the sentences against the female protesters had been politically motivated.

"There is no independent judiciary in Egypt," he told the Reuters news agency. "They (the judges) were looking at the girls' background instead of their actions. Now they have tried to fix the first decision and it makes more sense."

"Putting aside the blatantly political nature of this prosecution, the authorities failed to meet even the most basic standards of evidence to prove these women and girls engaged in violence or thuggery," read a statement issued Saturday by Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

"The lack of any evidence tying these women and girls to a crime only strengthens the impression that this was a sham prosecution," she said.

The speedy sentences, nearly a month after they were detained, are part of a widening crackdown on Morsi supporters. The government says tough measures against street protests are necessary, as the three years of turmoil that followed Egypt's 2011 uprising have done crippling damage to the economy. It accuses Morsi supporters of seeking to destabilize the country.

Thousands of members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist allies have been arrested since Morsi was toppled in a July 3 coup that followed demonstrations by millions calling on him to leave office. Hundreds more of his supporters have been killed in violent break-up of protests.

The crackdown has recently widened to include other non-Islamist critics of the current authorities. A new protest law was passed last month that tightly restricts public gatherings and increases penalties for violators, raising criticism of the authorities' lack of tolerance for dissent. The 14 women were convicted under pre-existing laws.

"This prosecution fits into Egypt's new normal — clamping down on protests, and criminalizing dissent," Whitson said.

At least three prominent non-Islamist activists have been referred to trial in accordance with the new law on charges of taking part in an illegal protest and assaulting policemen. Their trial begins Sunday. 

Wire services