In an explanation of the court sentence against 14 Muslim Brotherhood (MB) women university students who were said to have received prison sentences of 11 years in prison each for rioting,
professor of criminal law General Ali Zein al-Abideen told Watani that the 11-year clause indicated the total prison terms against all the women. “It was the MB who circulated news that each of the women was sentenced to 11 years in prison, but the truth is that the sentences ranged from six month to three years each.”
Wednesday 27 November had seen a court in Alexandria sentence 14 women who belong to the Muslim Brotherhood and are students in Alexandria University handed sentences for charges of blocking the Corniche, damaging public property, possessing unlicensed weapons, and disrupting public peace. Seven underage female defendants were placed in correction facilities. The Corniche is the main thoroughfare that crosses Alexandria form east to West; blocking it causes a traffic gridlock that lasts hours on end. The “damage of public property” involves the burning of shops and public utitlities.
Six MB leaders were handed 15-year prison terms each in absentia for inciting the women to commit the crimes. Seven underage female defendants were placed in correction facilities.
“The MB have exploited the court ruling to stir public protest, even though the allegations they propagated are false. There is also another truth which ahs been intentionally suppressed; this is that the ruling was issued by a misdemeanours court, and that it can be appealed before a higher court.”
The sentence brought on a wave of public protest, following the MB incitement. Apart from the loud-voiced protest by Islamists and some rights activists, however, sentence was almost unanimously approved by the public on online social networking sites and reader comments on news sites, who unambiguously denounced the MB women’s actions.
Ever since the Islamist president Muhammad Mursi was overthrown by massive public will and military intervention last July, the Islamist MB supporters have been waging an unceasing terror campaign against the Egyptian public. The Sinai Peninsula is the scene of an ongoing war which Islamist Jihadis are waging against the Egyptian army and security forces there; and scores of Egyptian have lost their lives.
Protests and roadblocks have regularly disrupted public life, and university students have daily staged violent demonstrations in universities.
The MB have resorted to using women and children as human shields, and exploiting them to execute acts of civil unrest, a fact strongly condemned by women and child rights activists.
The photo shows one of the women sentenced taking part in riots and attacks.
Watani International
1 December 2013
