Egypt jails 14 women, arrests civil activists
Egyptian authorities on Wednesday jailed 14 women - said to be Muslim Brotherhood members - for 11 years, and ordered the arrest of two leading activists for demonstrating against a controversial protest law.
A court in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria sentenced the 14 women after convicting them of belonging to a "terrorist organization", judicial sources said.
It also sentenced six men, said to be Brotherhood leaders, to 15 years, the sources said, adding that the convicted women were immediately transferred to prison.
The men, who were tried in absentia, were found guilty of inciting the women to block key roads in the city during clashes between supporters and opponents of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi on Oct 31.
Seven girls associated with the individuals on trial were sent to a juvenile detention center until they reach the age of 18, state media said.
Their sentencing is the latest in an ongoing government crackdown on Morsi supporters since the army toppled him on July 3.
More than 1,000 people have been killed in the crackdown and during clashes between pro- and anti-Morsi groups, while thousands have been arrested, mostly Islamists.
On Tuesday, the authorities appeared to widen their campaign when police confronted protests by secular and pro-democracy groups against a law passed during the weekend that regulates all demonstrations.
The law requires protest organizers to give at least three days' written notice before holding a demonstration.
Police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse Tuesday's demonstrators.
Authorities earlier justified Morsi's ouster by saying the government was responding to massive demonstrations against his rule.
Tuesday's protest triggered a standoff between authorities and some prominent activists who led the revolt against longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
Tempers flared on Wednesday when the general prosecutor ordered the arrests of Ahmed Maher, founder of the April 6 movement that spearheaded the 2011 revolt against Mubarak, and Alaa Abdel Fattah, a prominent activist.
"The two are accused of inciting protesters to hold demonstrations that broke the protest law," the prosecution said, according to the state-run Middle East News Agency.
The report said that 24 other protesters who joined the demonstration had been ordered detained for four days.
Judiciary and other sources said about 60 protesters were detained, including prominent activist Mona Seif, founder of a campaign against military trials of civilians.
She was held after joining a protest on Tuesday outside the Shura Council, where Egypt's new constitution is being drafted.
Seif and a group of 15 other women and 12 men were later released in the middle of the night on a desert road some 10 km south of Cairo.
"The Ministry of Interior alleges that each one of us had been dropped at her house, which means that all of us are living in the desert," Seif wrote on Twitter.
The Interior Ministry later approved a demonstration against the protest law in downtown Cairo's Talat al-Harb Square which hundreds of people attended on Wednesday.
Agence France-Presse
(China Daily 11/29/2013 page11)
