Egypt orders activist Abdel Fattah back to jail: family

CAIRO - Agence France-Presse

Egypt's most prominent activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah arrives outside a court that convicted 23 activists of staging an illegal demonstration and sentenced them each to three years in jail, in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2014. AP Photo

An Egyptian court ordered prominent activist Alaa Abdel Fattah back to jail Monday after he was previously freed on bail during a trial for taking part in an illegal protest, a relative said.
     
His sister Mona Seif told AFP Abdel Fattah had been taken into custody after a hearing into his case on charges of participating in a violent and illegal protest following the military's overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last year.
      
Abdel Fattah, 32, was one of the youth activists who spearheaded an uprising against veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and later backed the overthrow of the divisive Morsi.
      
He was released on bail in September after the previous judge in the trial recused himself.
      
Hailed as an "icon of the revolution" by the authorities after Morsi's overthrow, Abdel Fattah and other secular leaning dissident leaders have not been spared an extensive crackdown aimed mainly at Morsi's Islamist backers.
      
That crackdown has left at least 1,400 people dead and thousands in prison, most of them Islamists.
      
Another of Abdel Fattah's sisters, Sanaa Seif, was sentenced on Sunday to three years in prison by a separate court on similar charges, along with 22 other defendants.
      
They had both participated in two protests against a law, enacted after Morsi's overthrow, banning all but police-sanctioned protests.
      
New York-based Human Rights Watch denounced Sanaa Seif's imprisonment in a statement saying the Egyptian "government will clearly go to any length to crush domestic opposition, whether secular or Islamist".
      
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the army general who toppled Morsi after massive protests against the Islamist, has said a firm hand is needed to restore stability in the most populous Arab country after several years of turmoil.
      
His government is also facing a brazen militant insurgency that has killed scores of soldiers and policemen in recent months, including at least 30 troops in an attack on Friday.