In Alexandria, 14 Muslim Brotherhood (MB) women protestors who had been handed prison sentences for destruction of private property, blocking roads, stirring violence and possession of unlicensed weapons had their sentences reduced by an appeals court.
The previous prison sentences had totalled some 11 years, but the appeals court acquitted the women on the first charge, and convicted them on the other three charges, handing them a one-year prison suspended sentence for each woman.
Seven underage female protestors aged 15 to 17 were acquitted. They had been ordered placed in a juvenile correction facility by the lower court.
The previous sentence had brought on a wave of loud-voiced protest from the MB and rights activists. This, however, contradicted wide public approval for the sentence on online news and social networking sites where reader comments unambiguously denounced the MB women’s actions, and insisted the women had been voluntarily used as human shields. Mainstream Egyptians feel bitter at the unrest and damage the Islamists are working on Egypt, and insist these are attempts to penalise Egyptians for overthrowing the Islamist regime of Muhammad Mursi last July, and to defeat the country’s efforts at forging a democratic, civic future State.
Watani International
8 December 2013
