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Egypt journalist unionists get 2 years' jail for harbouring colleagues
Egyptian journalists hold up their cameras outside the Egyptian Press Syndicate in downtown Cairo, Egypt April 28, 2016, during a protest against the interior minister following the arrest of colleagues for covering anti-government demonstrations. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
19/11/2016
CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian court sentenced the head of a journalists union and two board members to two years in prison on Saturday for harbouring colleagues wanted by the law and spreading false news, judicial sources said.
Yehia Qalash, Khaled al-Balshy and Gamal Abdel Rahim can appeal the decision.
Saturday's decision to sentence the journalists comes as authorities try to quell rising dissent against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The verdict marks the first time for a head of the journalists syndicate to be put on trial since the union was founded 75 years ago. Human rights activists and lawyers have condemned the decision.
"The case shouldn't have gone to court to begin with," said Gamal Eid, a human rights lawyer and founder of a rights organisation, the Arab Network for Human Rights Information.
"The decision is political ... We are not talking here about law and the judiciary."
Egyptian prosecutors in May ordered Qalash, al-Balshy and Abdel Rahim be tried on charges of harbouring colleagues wanted by the law and spreading lies.
The journalists' lawyer Sayyed Abou Zeid at the time told Reuters they denied the charges, which relate to a May 2 police raid on the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate to arrest two opposition journalists who had sought shelter from arrest.
Qalash condemned the arrests of Mahmoud El Sakka and Amr Badr, which sparked protests from journalists, and issued a statement two days later demanding the interior minister be sacked.
Amnesty International urged the authorities to drop the charges against the union chiefs.
(Reporting by Haitham Ahmed and Amina Ismail; Writing by Amina Ismail; Editing by Dale Hudson)
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