Egyptian activist Mahinour El-Masry arrested again

Ahram Online, Monday 11 May 2015

The award-winning human rights lawyer, who attended Monday’s court session, has been detained by the police.

An Alexandria court ordered the arrest of activist and human rights lawyer Mahinour El-Masry on Monday, during the appeal to a court case in which El-Masry and nine others were sentenced to two years in prison last February.

El-Masry, who attended Monday’s court session, was detained by the police pending trial.

The court has set 31 May as the date for a verdict in the appeal.

In the case, the defendants 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.

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.