The trial of two human rights advocates and a blogger charged with defaming a judge adjourned to June 26 at the defendants' request, a judicial official said on Saturday
Gamel Eid, head of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), said he and his fellow defendants told the court they were not guilty of the charges brought against them by judge Abdel Fattah Mourad.
"We repeated today before the court that these charges were unfounded," Eid told AFP.
The other defendants are Ahmad Saif al-Islam, founder of the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre, and blogger Amr Gharbeia.
The three are charged with defamation, blackmail, and misuse of the Internet.
The judicial source said the trial was adjourned to June 26 to allow the defendants time to review the lengthy charges. Eid and Saif al-Islam are among Egypt's top human rights lawyers.
Meanwhile, an international human rights advocacy group urged the Egyptian authorities to immediately drop charges against two leading human rights defenders and a blogger, whose trial started in Cairo Saturday.
"Egypt should immediately drop the apparently politically motivated charges against these activists," the US-based NGO Human Rights Watch said in a statement Saturday.
"These men have for years stood with victims of human rights violations and demanded that security officials be held accountable," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
"By prosecuting them on bogus charges, the Egyptian Government is harming not only these three men but also all the people that they help."
