Case History: Mohamed Ramadan

On 9 February 2015, El Raml Misdemeanour Court in Alexandria sentenced Ms Mahienour El-Masry, MrYoussef Shabaan, Mr Mohamed Ramadan and Mr Loay Mohamed AbdelRahman to two years' imprisonment. The sentence can be suspended upon payment of a 5,000 Egyptian Pounds fine (approximately €580) per person.

Mahienour El-Masry works to promote judicial independence and prisoners' rights by organising peaceful protests, raising awareness using social media and organising support for political prisoners in the form of solidarity events and fundraising for bail for prisoners. Youssef Shabaan is a journalist and a defender of workers' rights who has previously been detained due to his human rights activities. Mohamed Ramadan is a human rights lawyer who previously worked for the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI). His activities include working to protect human rights defenders and political prisoners. Mohamed Ramadan is also one of Mahienour El-Masry's defence team in a separate case against her in which she and Loay Mohamed AbdelRahman were convictedof violating the protest law, assaulting security forces, and disrupting traffic. The conviction against Mahienour El-Masry was subsequently quashed, but Loay Mohamed AbdelRahman is currently serving a sentence of two years' imprisonment and is required to pay a 50,000 Egyptian Pound fine (approximately €5000). The human rights defender is an independent youth activist and human rights defender. All the above-mentioned human rights defenders are based in Alexandria, Egypt.

The four human rights defenders were convicted of “raiding El Raml Police Station”, “attacking a police man” and other reportedly fabricated charges relating to “disrupting traffic”, “damaging content of the Police Station”, “spreading fear and terror among citizens” and “an attempt to smuggle prisoners according to Police Report No 6868 for 2014, Al Raml Misdemeanour.

The charges arose out of their participation in March 2012 in a sit-in staged at the First Raml Police Station. The human rights defenders had come with other human rights defenders and lawyers to ensure the implementation of a prosecutor's decision to release a number of activists who were being held at the police station after being brought there on 29 March 2012 by members of the Freedom and Justice Party, an Egyptian political party formed by the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood. Upon arrival at the police station, the human rights defenders were verbally abused by the police. Subsequently, they initiated a sit-in inside the police station, demanding that the prosecution investigate the police aggression against them. In response to the sit-in, police verbally and physically assaulted the human rights defenders. Some persons who participated in the sit-in were subsequently released, but Mahienour El-Masry, Youssef Shabaan, Mohamed Ramadan and Loay Mohamed AbdelRahman, as well as six other individuals, were kept in detention.