CAIRO — It was a seemingly lenient sentence for charges of burning a political party headquarters a year ago — one year in jail, suspended for the next three years — but upon hearing the verdict Sunday, supporters of the defendants were long-faced and despondent. They said they interpreted the three-year suspension as an effort to prevent the activists from protesting the government in the near future.
“If they did what they claim, why a suspended sentence?” said Leila Soueif, the mother of two of the defendants. “Yes, it is suspended but this is a baseless case. There is no justice in our system anymore.”
The primary defendants in Sunday’s case, Alaa Abd el-Fattah and his sister Mona, had been leading figures in the 2011 protest movement that toppled President Hosni Mubarak. At one point, the government had even dropped the charges against them. But after the military retook control of the country on July 3, the charges were reinstated in what activists here say has been a concerted effort to eliminate political dissent.
The government crackdown has fallen hardest on the Muslim Brotherhood, whose leadership, including former President Mohammed Morsi, is in jail and facing charges. The organization is banned, and journalists face arrest for reporting on the Brotherhood’s activities. Three Al-Jazeera English journalists who were arrested in late December on charges that they were leading a terrorist cell were questioned again on Sunday.
