News / Egypt

Egypt detains four leaders of anti-Mubarak movement

Tuesday, 29 December 2015 8:54 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 29 December 2015 8:56 AM ]

Egyptian police officers stand guard outside the Zeinhom Morgue in Cairo on October 31, 2015. ©AFP

Egyptian authorities have reportedly arrested four leaders of a prominent activist group that played a key role in the country’s 2011 revolution against former dictator Hosni Mubarak.

The leaders of April 6 Youth Movement, namely Sherif Arubi, Mohamed Nabil, Ayman Abdel Megid and Mahmud Hesham, were taken into custody on Monday morning, an Egyptian judicial official said.

“The four are accused of inciting violence” and will be held for 15 days under preventative detention, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The movement earned renown for its young activists’ defiant spirit and influential role during the revolution against Mubarak.

The revolution was followed by the rise to power, through democratic elections, of President Mohammed Morsi in 2013. Morsi, however, was deposed the same year by the then army chief and current Presdient Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi.

Many of Egypt’s most prominent democracy activists have been jailed since Morsi’s overthrow. They include Ahmed Maher, the founder of the April 6 movement, who is serving a three-year term for taking part in anti-government demonstrations.

Hundreds of the ex-president’s supporters, including Morsi himself, have also been sentenced to death after often speedy mass trials, which the United Nations has slammed as “unprecedented in recent history.”

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