They were
handed down shortly after the interim military-backed regime made the highly
symbolic decision to order the arrest of two of the liberal protest leaders
most closely associated with the revolution against President Hosni Mubarak in
2011.
The women
arrested last month in Alexandria were supporters of Mr Morsi and members of
the "7am Club" which staged protests before school started. Images of
the defendants, many of them teenage girls, sitting in the dock in white prison
uniforms and hijabs were circulated on social media.
Their jail
terms were compared to the seven years handed down to two Alexandria policemen
accused of beating to death Khaled Said, a young businessman whose bloodied
image and tribute Facebook page became the revolutionaries' greatest rallying
points in 2011. The policemen are currently bailed pending appeal.
Another police
officer who was caught in the act of shooting protesters in the eyes with
birdshot in late 2011 was sentenced to just three years.
The sentences
of the minors have to be reviewed. They will be transferred to adult prison on
reaching the age of 18.
Since it
overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi in July, the regime has
claimed to be ruling in the spirt of the 2011 revolution. However, this week it
reinstated laws restricting public protests and has reasserted its right to try
civilians in military courts.
Meanwhile, the
public prosecutor's order to detain Ahmed Maher, whose April 6 movement was the
most prominent organisation involved in coordinating the 2011 Tahrir Square
demonstrations, and Alaa Abdulfatah, a prominent blogger, suggests that having
imprisoned large sections of the Brotherhood leadership it may turn against
liberal oppositionists more fiercely.
The move
followed an illegal rally against the new protest law on Tuesday.
By Wednesday
night, fresh crowds were gathering in central Cairo. "We are right back
where we were in 2011, and will just have to start again from scratch,"
said Mohammed Wagieh, 20.
Mr Wagieh, a
protest veteran, has been detained once for 20 days in 2011 and on another
occasion shot in the leg with live ammunition.
"The fear
barrier is now broken," he said. "In the beginning I would have been
afraid but now that I have been shot once and arrested once I'm not afraid at
all."
The cabinet
have defended the protest law on the grounds that rallies are unpopular with
residents whose lives were being disrupted. Critics point out that the army
cited the scale of popular protests against Mr Morsi at the end of June as
justification for moving against him.
The movement
that organised those protests, Tamarod, has up until now been among the army's
staunchest backers, but at least one leading figure came out against the new
law this week.
The army's
claim that it had the backing of an overwhelming majority of the Egyptian
population for its removal of Mr Morsi was contradicted, meanwhile, by a poll
by the Zogby Research organisation saying it was opposed by 51 per cent of
those surveyed, with 46 in favour.
The poll showed
backing for Gen Abdulfatah al-Sisi, the defence minister and Egypt's most
powerful man, at 46 per cent, compared to 44 per cent for Mr Morsi, an
indication of the striking division in Egyptian society over the role of
political Islam.