Egypt's Court of Cassation upheld convictions and three-year prison sentences of three activists Jan. 26 for violating the country's protest laws. Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma and Mohammed Adel were arrested under a law that bans political gatherings of more than 10 people without prior government permission. As the Court of Cassation is Egypt's highest, the convicted men have no further legal redress. Human Rights Watch has criticized the law since its drafting, claiming that it goes "well beyond the limitations permitted under international law" for the right to peacefully assemble. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights also condemned the law, its spokesperson stating that "no one should be criminalized or subjected to any threats or acts of violence, harassment or persecution for addressing human rights issues through peaceful protests." Thousands have been arrested under this law, including many supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.

A demonstrator identified as Shaimaa El Sabbagh was killed in clashes with Egyptian police during a protest near Cairo's Tahrir Square on Jan. 24. She was reportedly hit with birdshot fired by police. The protest, on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the uprising against Hosni Mubarak, was called by the Socialist Popular Alliance, which has now opposed the regimes of Mubarak, Morsi and al-Sisi alike. The clash ironcially took place hours before state television aired a speech by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to mark the fourth anniversary of the uprising, pre-recorded as al-Sisi had  left for Saudi Arabia to offer his condolences over the death of King Abdullah (a patron of his regime). "I salute all our martyrs, from the beginning of January 25 [2011] until now," Sisi said in his speech, broadcast just before his own cops created yet another martyr. Islamist supporters of Mohamed Morsi, ousted in Sisi's July 2013 coup, are expected t dominate protests around the uprising commemoration. (Daily News Egypt, AFP, Jan. 24) ) It is often forgotten that Egypt also has a secular left opposition, which during the 2013 unrest launched a "Third Square" movement, rejecting both the Morsi and Sisi supporters then both occupying Cairo squares. 

Egypt's Court of Cassation on Jan. 22 ordered a retrial for four police officers facing accusations of involuntary manslaughter relating to the deaths of 37 prisoners  in a van outside the Abu Zaabal prison in 2013. The prisoners, arrested days before during protests in support of former president Mohamed Morsi, were being transported from the Nasser City police station to the Abu Zaabal prison on Aug. 18, 2013, when the officers in question allegedly fired tear gas into an overcrowded police van. The gas caused 37 of the 45 prisoners within the van to die from suffocation. A series of conflicting early reports asserted that the detainees were attempting to escape, or being freed by an armed group. In March one of the officers, Lt. Col. Amr Farouk, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter and extreme negligence. The other three officers, Ibrahim El-Morsi, Islam Abdel-Fattah and Mohamed Abdel-Aziz, were given suspended sentences. In June, those sentences were overturned by a lower appeals court. The coming retrial will be the final trial for the officers, as Egyptian law only permits two appeals.

An Egyptian court in Baheira governorate on Jan. 10 sentenced a student to three years in prison for announcing on Facebook that he is an atheist and for allegedly "insulting Islam." The sentence, the latest of several handed down on blasphemy charges in recent years, comes amid a coordinated government crackdown on perceived atheists. Authorities arrested the student, Karim Ashraf Mohamed al-Banna, with a group of others at a youth café in Beheira in November, Egypt's Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression reported. "Atheists are one of Egypt's least-protected minorities, although the constitution ostensibly guarantees freedom of belief and expression," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Egyptian authorities need to be guided by the constitution and stop persecuting people for atheism."

Blogger Raif Badawi, convicted of "offenses to Islamic precepts" in Saudi Arabia, is to receieve 1,000 lashes starting Jan. 9. The lashing order says Badawi should "be lashed very severely." He is to receive 50 lashes once a week for the first 20 weeks of his 15-year prison term. The piunishment was imposed  for having co-founded a website, "Free Saudi Arabian Liberals" (now offline), and for posts to Facebook and Twitter. His posts criticized and poked fun at Saudi institutions such as the Commission for the Promotion of Goodness and the Prohibition of Vice (the "religious police"), the Saudi Grand Mufti, other Saudi ulema, or religious scholars. Among his offending comments: "My commitment is…to reject any repression in the name of religion…a goal that we will reach in a peaceful and law-abiding way." (Gatestone Institute, The Guardian, Jan. 8)

Opposition and human rights activists in Egypt are bracing for the impacts of a new law "anti-terrorism" decree signed by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that allows life sentences for such ill-defined crimes as intending to "harm the national interest," "compromise national unity," or "breach security or public peace." Human rights attorney Ragia Omran told the New York Times, "Everyone in civil society is panicking." (Inquisitr, Dec. 27) At the end of 2014, el-Sisi boatsed of having detained nearly 10,000 for "rioting" and "terrorism" over the course of the year. (Daily News Egypt, Dec. 21)

Egypt's top prosecutor on Dec. 13 referred 439 individuals to a military tribunal for the killing of three police officers last year. The group was composed  of about 139 Islamists from the southern province of Minya and 300 from the Nile Delta province of Beheira. The prosecutor's case was based on the violence last year in response to a dispersal by police of an Islamist sit-in. The prosecutor's case is part of a program that Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi started last year in which the military is to join with police to protect state interests, and anyone involved in attacks against state facilities is to be prosecuted by military tribunals. Human Rights Watch stated that these military tribunals "lack even the shaky due process guarantees provided by regular courts."

Protests held in the Bahraini island city of Sitra Dec. 6 against an agreement signed between the kingdom and Great Britain to establish a new military base in the Persian Gulf state. Bahraini opposition figures, including members of the main Shi'ite party, al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, also expressed outrage over the deal. (Tasnim, Iran, Dec. 7) The base, at Mina Salman Port in Bahrain, will host Royal Navy vessels including destroyers and aircraft carriers. It is to be Britain's first permanent base in the Middle East in over 40 years. UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said the new base shows Britain's commitment to a "sustained presence east of Suez"—referring to the wording of a 1968 decision to close bases east of Suez by 1971. (BBC News, Dec. 6)