Egypt: Human rights lawyer jailed for four years for ‘spreading false news’

Mohamed el-Baqer

Mr el-Baqer was tried alongside blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah and journalist Mohamed ‘Oxygen’ Ibrahim before Egypt’s controversial Emergency State Security Court (ESSC), whose sentences cannot be appealed.

The three men were convicted of “spreading false news undermining national security”, having been held in pre-trial detention since September 2019, Middle East Eye reports.

The ESSC was established during the state of emergency declared in Egypt in 2017. The state of emergency was lifted in October 2021, but the court retains jurisdiction to complete the cases already before it.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has warned of breaches of fair trial rights in the ESSC and has accused the Egyptian government of “weaponising the Emergency State Security system to crush free expression and dissent”.

Ahmed Mefreh, director of the Geneva-based Committee for Justice, told Middle East Eye: “Today’s ruling reflects the Sisi regime’s targeting of three types of critics in the country: political activists who supported the 2011 revolution, represented in Alaa Abdel Fattah, human rights defenders represented by Baqer, and journalists and free speech advocates like Oxygen.”