CAIRO: A military court has sentenced two young men to 6-months in military prison on Wednesday for chanting anti-military rule slogans during a march, al-Nadeem Center for Human Rights said. Mahmoud Mohammed Saied, an 18-year-old student and Kareem Saied, 23-years-old, were detained during a peaceful march and were arrested by security forces where they later appeared in front of a military court that handed them the sentence. Military court rulings cannot be appealed and are widely criticized by human rights organizations and rights activists for a lack of guarantees of justice and transparency. Sources from the rights community put the number of young people detained by the military between 10,000 and 12,000 since the January uprising ousted the former government, most of them prisoners of conscience. Egypt's ruling authority, the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces (SCAF) is under heavy fire for putting civilians in military courts and prisons. Activists and intellectuals in the country are launching a wave of criticism against the SCAF for not tolerating criticism and rushing to imprison writers and bloggers. Asmaa Mahfouz has become the posterchild for the anti-SCAF movement after she was summoned on Sunday and charged with inciting violence against the military. She was released on bail, but is expected to face a military court where she could receive a lengthy prison sentence. BM
