Egypt Sentences Muslim Brotherhood Leader To Life In Prison
The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood has been sentenced to life in prison by an Egyptian Court:
The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Mohamed Badie, was sentenced on Saturday to life in prison for inciting violence in street protests last year, an Egyptian television channel reported.
Egypt’s ONTV reported that the presiding judge, Hassan Farid, said the 70-year-old incited violence “to achieve terrorist goals” after the army removed the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi from the presidency in July 2013.
Another 36 Brotherhood members were given the same sentence at the Cairo trial, while 10 others were sentenced to death. Many of the co-defendants were tried in absentia.
Badie, who has already received death sentences in two separate cases, was one of thousands of Brotherhood figures and supporters arrested after Morsi’s removal.
The Brotherhood has since been listed as a “terrorist movement,” with much of its leadership imprisoned, including the former president.
Its supporters have held protests, often resulting in clashes, against the government that replaced Morsi.
This case was separate from the charges against former President Mohammed Morsi, which has yet to go to trial, but the sentence imposed seems to be a strong indication of what the outcome of that case is going to be. In many ways, of course, this is really just a return to previous policy as far as how the Egyptian government has treated opposition groups in general, and the Muslim Brotherhood specifically. The Brotherhood has essentially been illegal since its founding except for the brief period after Hosni Mubarak was deposed and yet it has managed to survive. One doubts that this sentence will be any more successful in wiping the movement out than previous efforts have been.
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This is like when an American protestor gets charged with assaulting a cop for attacking the cop’s fist with their face.
Yeah, as if this will solve any matters.
Honestly, why do juntas ALL ACT THE SAME WAY: throw the opposition into prison and repress, repress, repress.
Now the Muslim Brotherhood will start getting sympathy votes again.
YEAH!!! Democracy, that’s the answer! Way to prove Osama bin Laden prophetic. And people call jihadi’s “extremists”.
@OzarkHillbilly: And for the record, they are. But tell me, are we not telling them they have to be.
AFAIK, Morsi never applied for US citizenship, but he was a California State University for several years in the 1980’s and an advisor to NASA. It’s probably beyond the US reach for us to shield him from a lengthy (or life-long) imprisonment, but I think it’d be reasonable for the US government to inform the Egyptians that we “take an interest” in seeing that he get’s a fair trial based on actual evidence rather than a verdict predetermined by his membership in the Moslem Brotherhood.
Granted, the MB isn’t the US government’s favorite Moslem organization. but a military junta shouldn’t be our favorite Moslem organization either, and we’ve nothing to lose by making the point that we generally — frequently? — often? — now and then? — appreciate nations which follow democratic practices.