An Egyptian court Tuesday handed down hefty sentences on members of a group accused of practicing "extremist" religious beliefs following a high-profile trial condemned by human rights campaigners as an attempt to stifle religious freedoms.
Amin Yussif, a 51-year-old civil servant--who was described by prosecutors as the leader of the group charged with "exploiting religion for extremist ideas"--was sentenced to three years in prison, along with one of his associates, Ali Abd al-Wali al-Sis. Yussif's wife, Amal Mahmud, and five others, received one-year suspended jail terms.
On the eve of the verdict, Amnesty International described the prosecution as "yet another example of people being at risk of imprisonment solely for exercising their right to freedom of belief."
Amnesty, which campaigns globally on behalf of prisoners of conscience, had urged the government of President Hosny Mubarak to immediately release the eight detained for nearly six months after they were arrested for holding private religious gatherings and advocating changes in Islam, including rules for prayers and pilgrimage.
The court where the verdict was issued, Cairo's state security court, has been the target of criticism since it was set up under Egypt's emergency laws, in place since the late 1960s.
Campaigners say the court's powers--which deny defendants the right to appeal before a higher tribunal--run counter to standards laid out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Egypt signed in 1967. The Covenant, adopted by the United Nations in 1966, guarantees that those convicted have the right to a review of their conviction and sentence by a higher authority.
The trial of the eight followed several other similar cases, including those of writer Salah al-Din Muhsin, who was accused of "offending religion" in his publications and sentenced to three years in prison in January, 2001, and Manal Wahid Mana'I, a mother of five who was given a five-year sentence in September, 2000, for leading a Sufi cult, whose members follow a mystical strand of Islamist thought.
Most of the 10 people serving jail sentences at the end of 2001 for their religious beliefs were charged under Egypt's penal code which sets a maximum five-year term for "exploiting religion for extremist ideas with the aim of provoking a conflict or of showing scorn or contempt for one of the divinely revealed religions or harming national unity or social peace."
While Amnesty's North Africa specialist was unavailable for comment after Tuesday's verdict, the organisation said in a statement, "The Egyptian authorities should review or abolish legislation that, in violation of international standards, stipulates prison sentences for acts which constitute nothing more than the exercise of the rights of freedom of thought, conscience and religion."