Writer and activist Alaa Abd El Fattah was sentenced on Monday to five years in prison, while lawyer Mohamed al-Baqer and blogger Mohamed “Oxygen” Ibrahim were sentenced to four years each.

The trial, in which all three faced charges of publishing false news, took place in an emergency state security misdemeanors court, and cannot be appealed through the courts. The sentences were handed down after just three trial sessions and came despite defense lawyers not having access to the case files or an opportunity to present a defense.

The emergency court ruling is awaiting ratification by the president, or someone he delegates, before it is implemented, defense lawyers Khaled Ali, Tarek Khater and Ahmed Ragheb told Mada Masr.

Khater, who attended today’s session on behalf of Ibrahim, explained that a court attendant pronounced the verdict from inside the deliberation room, while the judge did not appear during the session nor were the three defendants brought to the courtroom.

Security preparations in the courtroom were nevertheless intensified on Monday morning. Family members of the three defendants were initially forced by security personnel to leave the courtroom until lawyers negotiated for three people from each family to be allowed to enter, said Khater.

He stressed that judicial rulings are supposed to be open to the public, “but what happened today is that we saw neither the judges nor the defendants.”

It is not yet clear whether the two years that the defendants have spent in custody since their arrests in September 2019 will be counted toward their sentences, Baqer’s lawyer, Ahmed Ragheb, told Mada Masr. Although the investigation that was ultimately referred to the courts was different from the investigation for which they were first arrested, Ragheb said that the two years should be deducted from the sentence, since the false news charges on which they were convicted are the same.

However, Khater expressed doubt that the time served would be counted. A similar case recently saw former MP Zyad Elelaimy, activist Hossam Moanis and journalist Hisham Foad sentenced to years of jail time after facing false news charges in two separate investigations, though they were convicted in only one. Khater said the prevailing opinion was that Elelaimy, Moanis and Fouad would not have the two years they’d spent in remand detention deducted from their sentences unless the first case was closed or the defendants were acquitted from it.

The decision is up to the Public Prosecution, said Khater, which is responsible for announcing the start and end dates of the sentences issued today.

Abd El Fattah, Ibrahim and Baqer were informed on October 13 that they had been referred to an emergency court. The move came just days before President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced the end of the state of emergency that had been in place since 2017.

“The government’s rush to use emergency courts before declaring the end to the state of emergency, after holding people illegally for years in pretrial detention, confirms that fierce repression of peaceful critics remains the order of the day in Egypt,” Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

According to Human Rights Watch, at least 48 individuals in remand detention were referred to emergency courts shortly before Sisi announced the end of the state of emergency.  “The egregious miscarriage of justice handed down by this exceptional court to punish peaceful expression reveals how Egypt’s justice system has itself become a tool of repression,” Stork said. “The court should overturn the verdict and release Abdel Fattah, al-Baqer, and Ibrahim immediately.”

Over the course of three sessions, the court continually failed to respond to any of the requests from the defendants’ defense. These included a full official copy of the case file and permission for lawyers to visit their clients in prison to discuss the defense strategy.

They also included requests for permission for Abd El Fattah to grant special power of attorney to his lawyer, to allow his defense to sue the State Security Prosecution as well as the court hearing the case. Ibrahim also made the same request in order to initiate a litigation case against the court.

In the final session before the sentencing hearing, Abd El Fattah and Baqer spoke to the court about the harsh conditions of their detention, noting that they were denied their right to read and exercise. Ibrahim’s lawyer then demanded the court’s recusal, to which the judge responded by adjourning the session and calling for a sentencing hearing today.

Last Friday, the German Foreign Ministry demanded the release of the trio, expressing hope that Egypt would work to achieve a fair trial for them and that the ruling would demonstrate “where the human rights situation in Egypt is heading.” The Egyptian Foreign Ministry responded on Saturday, accusing its German counterpart of “blatant and unjustified interference” in Egypt’s internal affairs.

Human rights organizations had previously condemned the three defendants’ referral to a sentencing hearing, calling for the cessation of “this farcical trial” and saying that “the court’s rejection of the simplest defense requests raises fears that the ruling has already been made and only remains to be announced on December 20.”