CAIRO (MEMO) – Prison sentences issued by an emergency court to Alaa Abdelfattah, Mohamed Baqer and Mohmed Oxygen in October last year do not include the two years they were held on pretrial detention before that.
Baqer’s wife, Naema Hisham, found out that her husband’s four-year prison sentence was ratified on 3 January 2022 up until January 2026, reports Mada Masr, even though he has been detained since September 2019.
Lawyers confirmed to Mada Masr that the five-year prison sentence given to Alaa and the four-year term given to Baqer and Oxygen by the emergency state security court (ESSC) for “spreading false news and undermining national security” will not have their pre-trial detention period deducted from their sentences.
Abdelfattah is a blogger and member of the “no to military trials for civilians,” Oxygen is a blogger who reported on human rights issues in Egypt and Baqer is a human rights lawyer who was arrested whilst defending Abdelfattah.
The International Federation for Human Rights says their charges are related to social media posts they posted about human rights violations in Egypt.
In July 2021 Oxygen attempted to commit suicide after being denied family visits throughout his two-year pretrial detention and Abdelfattah said he was suicidal after his pretrial detention was renewed in September last year.
Emergency state courts have been in the spotlight in recent months as they were active under the emergency law which was not renewed last year for the first time since 2017.
Even though they will no longer be used the government announced that anyone who had already been referred to one before the end of emergency law would still be tried in one, in a move human rights groups have criticized.