Agencies/Cairo
An Egyptian court upheld three-year jail sentences yesterday for three prominent liberal activists, judicial sources said, after days of violence around the anniversary of the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
In 2013, a court handed down the sentences against Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma and Mohamed Adel—leading figures of the pro-democracy revolt—for protesting without permission and assaulting police, under a new law suppressing demonstrations.
A car bomb killed one person and wounded two near a police station in Egypt’s second largest city Alexandria yesterday, and police discovered three other explosive devices, security sources said, blaming militant Islamists.
Assailants hurled Molotov cocktails at another police station in Alexandria, setting fire to part of the building. There were no casualties.
Two bombs planted in front of a courthouse in Cairo’s Heliopolis district were defused while a bomb in front of another courthouse in Fayoum province exploded without causing injuries, the security sources said.
Militants have stepped up attacks against soldiers and police since the army toppled president Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 following mass protests against his rule.
Critics accuse Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the former army chief who was elected president last year, of returning Egypt to authoritarian rule. Sisi says he is committed to democracy.
Security forces have mounted the biggest crackdown against Islamists in the country’s history on Sisi’s watch and liberal activists have also been jailed.
The UN human rights chief said yesterday he was “deeply disturbed” over the killing of 20 protesters by security forces in clashes over the past few days.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein also demanded in a statement that Cairo “take urgent measures to bring an end to the excessive use of force by security personnel”.
Zeid’s comments came after 20 protesters were killed since Friday, including leading left-wing female activist Shaimaa al-Sabbagh, said to have been hit in the back by buckshot.
Two members of the security forces have also been killed.
Zeid said “hundreds of people have died during protests against successive governments since January 2011, and there has been very little in the way of accountability”.
“The lack of justice for past excesses by security forces simply encourages them to continue on the same path,” he warned, pointing out that this was “leading to more deaths and injuries, as we have seen in recent days”.
The statement said Sabbagh’s death was caught “on video and in photographs posted on the Internet after she had apparently been shot from behind during a peaceful protest in central Cairo”.
Zeid’s condemnation came after the United States, Britain and Human Rights Watch denounced protesters’ killings.
Egypt brushed off the criticism, saying it was “unbalanced... and far from reality”.
“These statements overlook acts of murder, arson and terrorism that supporters of the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood have carried out,” a foreign ministry statement said.
Zeid also decried numerous arrests over the weekend.
Authorities said more than 500 backers of the blacklisted Brotherhood were arrested, in the biggest daily sweep since Sisi came to power.
“All those who have been detained for protesting peacefully must be released,” Zeid said, insisting that the long-term stability of Egypt is only possible if fundamental human rights are respected.
“Otherwise people’s grievances will fester and feelings of injustice will grow, creating fertile ground for further social and political unrest.”
People walk past police standing guard in central Cairo yesterday.
