Cairo: Prominent Egyptian activist and rights lawyer Mahinour Al Masri vowed on Monday to fight against a law heavily restricting protests, hours after she was released from prison.
An appeals court in the coastal city of Alexandria on Sunday suspended a six-month jail sentence against Mahinour and ordered her release.
“Don’t be afraid of those jailing the body. We aren’t afraid and will continue the march,” she posted on her Facebook page.
Mahinour, 26, was arrested last December for protesting outside a court building in Alexandria where two policemen were being retried over deadly torture of political blogger Khalid Saeed whose 2010 death sparked a popular revolt the following year against long-standing president Hosni Mubarak.
In May, a lower court gave Mahinour a two-year sentence and ordered her to pay a fine of 50,000 Egyptian pounds fine (around Dh25,000) after convicting her of staging an unauthorised protest and attacking police.
In July, the sentence was reduced to six months in prison. “The whole issue is politicised,” Mahinour said. “Every now and then, they [authorities] release some political detainees as if the regime were democratic while thousands are still inside prisons.”
Her release comes a week after another court freed on bail Alaa Abdul Fattah, a leading protester in the 2011 revolt against Mubarak. Abdul Fattah had been jailed for holding an illegal protest.
Dozens of Egyptian pro-democracy campaigners have been jailed since last November when authorities issued a controversial law that bans street rallies without police permission.
Rights groups and the opposition have condemned the law as aimed at muzzling political dissent. The government says it is necessary to regulate street protests and preventing them from turning violent.
More than 200 political detainees are on hunger strike as part of “Empty Stomachs”, a campaign launched to press authorities into scrapping the disputed law and release political prisoners, according to activists.
Several liberals and leftists have said they started a symbolic hunger strike in solidarity with the detainees.
“Campaigns such as “Empty Stomachs” are making an impact. We have to step up pressure for the release of wronged detainees from prisons,” Mahinour said.
The government of President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi last week denied reports that it was reconsidering the protest law.
Mahinour was earlier this year awarded the European Ludovic Trarieux human rights prize annually offered to lawyers, who advocate human rights.
She was also detained in the eras of Mubarak and his Islamist successor Mohammad Mursi, who was toppled by the army last year.
