The Matareya Misdemeanor Court docket of Attraction upheld former Egyptian presidential candidate Ahmed Tantawy’s sentence of 1 12 months in jail for incitement and help within the crime of printing and circulating electoral course of papers with out permission, his lawyer announced on Monday.
Tantawy and his electoral marketing campaign director Mohamed Abu El-Diya had been each initially sentenced to at least one 12 months’s imprisonment, and each bailed out pending enchantment with 20,000 Egyptian kilos in February. Tantawy was additionally banned from working for parliamentary elections for 5 years. The court docket additional imprisoned 21 members of his marketing campaign with the identical sentence.
Based on a post revealed on his X (previously Twitter) account, Tantawy mentioned throughout the trial that he bears full duty for his electoral marketing campaign and urged the court docket to acquit and launch all defendants concerned within the case instantly.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) senior Center East and North Africa researcher Amr Magdi stated following the February ruling:
The Egyptian authorities ought to instantly throw out the abusive costs towards Tantawy and his supporters, that are nothing greater than retaliation for his peaceable marketing campaign to problem President Sisi…By barring Tantawy from working in future elections, the authorities are sending a transparent message that no critical problem to Sisi might be tolerated.
The costs towards Tantawy had been introduced in accordance withDecree-Law 45/2014 on the Regulation of the Exercise of Political Rights, which prohibits “printing or distributing, in any method, election ballots or paperwork used within the electoral course of” and units a minimal sentence of 1 12 months in jail. HRW condemned using the regulation and confused its incompatibility with the rights to freedom of expression and affiliation as protected beneath worldwide human rights regulation.
Source / Picture: jurist.org
