Egyptian activist Mahinour El-Masry sentenced to 15 months in prison
Source:
Ahram Online Ahram Online , Sunday 31 May 2015
An Alexandria court has sentenced Egyptian activist and human rights lawyer Mahienour El-Masry and two others to one year and three months in prison over “storming” a police station in 2013 during the reign of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.
Ten defendants were originally handed a two-year prison term before the sentence for three of them was reduced on appeal on Sunday. They were accused of storming the Al-Raml police station in Alexandria and attacking its officers, as well as torching Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in March 2013.
El-Masry, Journalist Youssef Shaaban and poet and activist Loay El-Ahwagy, who is already in jail in another case, were present for the appeal.
Egyptian activist Mahinour El-Masry (Photo: Al-Ahram)
Seven other defendants, who are part of the lawsuit, received the original sentence in absentia and did not show up after and hence their sentence was not appealed.
Both Shaaban and El-Masry were arrested on 11 May during an appeal session to the case. This is not the first case in which El-Masry has received a prison sentence.
The human rights lawyer and revolutionary socialist activist was released from jail in September 2014, after having served four months of a six-month sentence in a different case for charges of "illegal protesting" during the Khaled Said murder retrial in December 2013.
During her four months in jail, before the sentence was suspended, El-Masry was awarded the 2014 Ludovic Trarieux Award for her contributions to the defence of human rights.