Egypt court upholds jailing of leading pro-democracy activists

CAIRO — An Egyptian appeals court on Monday upheld the jailing of three leading figures of the 2011 pro-democracy uprising, tightening a crackdown on secular activists opposed to the army-backed government.

Critics see their case as an attempt to stifle the kind of political street activism common since the uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak three years ago as Egypt prepares for presidential election next month.

A court handed down three-year sentences to the three liberal activists, Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma and Mohamed Adel, last December for protesting without permission and assaulting the police.

The verdict was the first under a new law that requires police permission for demonstrations. The case stemmed from protests called in defiance of the law. The European Union and the United States had urged Egypt to reconsider the verdict.

Popular leftist politician and presidential hopeful Hamdeen Sabahi condemned the sentences and urged Interim President Adli Mansour to grant the activists a presidential pardon. The liberal Al Dostour Party made the same request.

The three men appeared in court on Monday inside a metal cage wearing blue prison suits and chanting: “Down, down with army rule, our country will always be free!”

They have one final chance to appeal to a higher court but analysts see little hope of the verdict being overturned.

“I was not expecting this sentence at all. I was certainly expecting it to be overturned. That is very bad news,” said Dostour Party spokesman Khaled Dawoud.

“This will definitely send a very negative signal to all the young people who supported the [2011] January revolution.”

Already pursuing a crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood movement of deposed president Mohamed Morsi, the army-led authorities have arrested a number of secular activists in recent months for breaches of the new protest law.