Ahmed Douma sentenced to 1 year with hard labor on false news charges

Poet and political activist Ahmed Douma was sentenced to one year in prison with hard labor on Wednesday by the New Cairo Misdemeanors Court on the backdrop of his arrest and investigation for writing about the changing role of prisons in the region. He was sentenced on charges of “deliberately broadcasting false news, statements and rumors inside and outside the country, which could disturb public order and spread chaos,” based on the article published earlier this year and social media posts, lawyer Nabih al-Genady, a member of his defense team, told Mada Masr. The defense team plans to appeal the verdict. The verdict was relayed to the defense team by the court secretary and not announced in the session, which Douma was not allowed to attend despite being transferred from his place of detention to the court, Genady said. Douma has been detained since April 6, when the Supreme State Security Prosecution questioned him about an article he penned, titled, “ From the Prison Inside the State to the State Inside the Prison ,” published by the Qatar-funded outlet The New Arab, as well as comments on his Facebook profile regarding prison conditions, before charging him. During the investigation and subsequent detention renewal hearings, Douma has maintained that his article does not contain any false information but addresses violations he had experienced during his long years of imprisonment. His defense team has repeatedly requested inspections of detention facilities to verify the violations, including Douma’s complaint regarding 24-hour lighting in prison cells that is depriving prisoners of sleep. After a series of detention renewals, one of which was appealed by the defense team to no avail, the Supreme State Security Prosecution referred Douma at the end of April to urgent trial before the New Cairo Misdemeanor Court. On Tuesday, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights called for Douma’s acquittal, reiterating that his prosecution on the grounds of publishing writing about his personal experience in prison constitutes a violation of constitutional guarantees on the freedoms of opinion and expression. In a statement issued after the verdict, Amnesty International condemned Douma’s trial and sentencing as a “devastating assault on the right to freedom of expression,” saying that his renewed imprisonment for describing prison conditions is “emblematic of the Egyptian authorities’ ongoing misuse of the criminal justice system to punish and deter peaceful dissent, destroying the lives of thousands of people and their families.” Douma, who was imprisoned for 10 years in relation to multiple charges stemming from clashes between protesters and security forces that took place outside the Cabinet building in Cairo in 2011, was released in 2023 by presidential pardon. Since then, he has been summoned by prosecuting authorities on seven separate occasions in relation to his online activity, paying a total of nearly LE230,000 in bail in the ongoing cases against him. He has also faced security restrictions on his life and career since his presidential pardon, including a travel ban, long delays in issuing his official documents and constant surveillance, his brother previously told Mada Masr. Mahmoud Shalaby, Amnesty International’s regional researcher, said in the statement that Douma’s new sentence “exposes the hollow reality of the presidential pardons he and others received in 2023 and signals that activists released from prolonged unjust detention are not safe from re-arrest.” The post Ahmed Douma sentenced to 1 year with hard labor on false news charges first appeared on Mada Masr .