April 6 Youth Movement Activists Sentenced to Three Years in Prison


On December 22, 2013 Mohamed Adel, Ahmed Maher, and Ahmed Douma, three leaders of the April 6 Youth Movement, were sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor and fined $7,000 USD each for their involvement in organizing an illegal protest against the anti-protest law. Ahmed Maher turned himself in to authorities on November 30, 2013 after a warrant for his arrest was issued. Ahmed Douma was arrested on December 3, 2013. Mohamed Adel was arrested in a nighttime government raid on the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights on December 18, 2013. Their unauthorized protest against the anti-protest law and subsequent conviction made them the first to be jailed under the new and controversial law.

Maher and Adel are both founding members of the April 6 Youth Movement, and along with Douma, remain high-profile secular critics of the current Egyptian Government.