CAIRO: An Egyptian court sentenced former presidential hopeful Ahmed Tantawy to a year in prison with labour on Monday. His lawyer Khaled Ali said authorities also barred him from contesting elections for the next five years.
Tantawy was the most prominent politician to challenge President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as he sought a third term last year.
Tantawy halted his campaign saying state-linked groups had stopped him from gathering enough public endorsements to register as a candidate. Dozens of his family members and allies had been arrested, he said.
Authorities charged him with campaign violations for distributing separate endorsement forms. A lower court found him guilty in February, upholding a suspended sentence.
Tantawy was also fined 20,000 Egyptian pounds ($424), and barred from contesting any elections in Egypt for five years.
“This is a political liquidation and a targeting of the person of Ahmed Tantawy,” Rasha Qandeel, Tantawy’s wife and spokesperson for his political movement, told Reuters.
Ali said Tantawy had the right to appeal but that it could take up to two months to launch the appeal process.
Officials declared Sisi the winner with under 90% of the votes cast in the December elections. This secured him a third term until 2030.
Rights groups estimate that tens of thousands of people have been jailed in Egypt for political dissent under Sisi. Egyptian officials have denied holding political prisoners.
(REUTERS)
In a career spanning three decades and counting, Ramananda (Ram to his friends) has been the foreign editor of The Telegraph, Outlook Magazine and the New Indian Express. He helped set up rediff.com’s editorial operations in San Jose and New York, helmed sify.com, and was the founder editor of India.com.
His work has featured in national and international publications like the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, Global Times and Ashahi Shimbun. But his one constant over all these years, he says, has been the attempt to understand rising India’s place in the world.
He can rustle up a mean salad, his oil-less pepper chicken is to die for, and all it takes is some beer and rhythm and blues to rock his soul.
Talk to him about foreign and strategic affairs, media, South Asia, China, and of course India.
