CAIRO: The 11-year prison sentence of 14 girls and members of Saba Al-Sobh, or 7 a.m., movement was met with outrage andcondemnation by several human rights groups and political parties.The Sidi Gaber Misdemeanor Court Wednesday sentenced 14 girls to 11 years in prison, and ordered them to be kept under surveillance for four years after serving their sentence. The Juvenile Court ordered the referral of seven underage girls to a juvenile detention center on charges of protesting, blocking roads, bullying, damaging of public property, and weapon possession.
The girls were arrested on Oct. 31 in Alexandria during a demonstration in support of ousted President Mohamed Morsi. They are members of the Saba Al-Sobh, named due to the group holding demonstrations early morning before the start of the school day.
The Arabic Network for Human rights Information (ANHRI) released a press statement Thursday calling on interim President Adly Mansour to “realize the serious mistakes that led to issuing such an unfair judgment,” and use his powers to pardon them in a bid to save their future.
“The continuation of issuing such politicized judgments by Egyptian judiciary members against activists in light of their political views raises doubts over the future of justice in Egypt, and getting back to using the justice institutions as a tools against the opposition in Egypt,” ANHRI added.
Former presidential candidate and leader of the Egyptian Popular Current Hamdeen Sabahi published a tweet on his personal twitter account, also calling upon Mansour to pardon the girls.
Al-Watan, an Islamist political party, released a statement yesterday condemning the sentence, referring to it as “unprecedented in the history of the Egyptian judiciary” and called upon people to “retrieve the gains of the January 25 Revolution.”
