Egypt sentences 40 Morsi supporters to jail

Egypt has sentenced 40 supporters of former president, Mohamed Morsi, to up to 15 years imprisonment, a judicial source says.

A criminal court in the southern Egyptian city of Asyut on Thursday sentenced two Morsi backers to 15 years in prison each, while the rest were handed down jail terms ranging from one to 10 years, according to the source.

The defendants have been charged with taking part in acts of violence in Asyut in 2013, during which several police stations and shops as well as five churches were reportedly set on fire.

The criminal court also acquitted 61 other Morsi supporters standing trial on the same charges, the source added.

Egypt has been experiencing unrelenting violence since Morsi, the country’s first democratically-elected president, was ousted in July 2013, in a military coup led by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt’s current president and then army commander.

Since then, the North African country’s military-backed government has launched a heavy crackdown on Morsi’s supporters, arresting thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members, including the party’s senior leaders.

In December 2013, the military-installed government also declared the Muslim Brotherhood movement a “terrorist” group and banned all its activities.

Egyptians launched a revolution against the regime of the former dictator, Hosni Mubarak, in January 2011, which eventually brought an end to his 30-year rule in the Arab country in February that year.