An Egyptian appeals court upheld a one-year jail sentence on Monday for opposition politician Ahmad al-Tantawi, leading to his immediate arrest inside the courthouse, according to his lawyer Nabeh Elganadi.
Tantawi, who had aimed to challenge President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in last year’s elections, was convicted of election campaign irregularities in February. At that time, the sentence was suspended on bail pending appeal. Following the court’s decision, Tantawi was promptly taken into custody.
In addition to the jail sentence, Tantawi has been barred from running in parliamentary elections for five years, as reported by the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms.
The Matareya Misdemeanour Court also upheld prison sentences for 22 members of Tantawi’s campaign team, including campaign director Mohamed Aboul Deyar.
Each received a one-year sentence with hard labour for distributing election-related materials without official authorization during the lead-up to the election, which saw Sisi win his third term in a landslide.
Tantawi had accused authorities of obstructing his efforts to gather the required endorsements to run for president, citing various pretexts including computer malfunctions.
He resorted to collecting unofficial “popular endorsement” forms, a move the authorities condemned as election fraud. Tantawi managed to collect only 14,000 endorsements, falling short of the 25,000 needed from at least 15 of Egypt’s 27 governorates.
Faced with ongoing harassment and obstruction, Tantawi withdrew his candidacy before the December vote, which saw Sisi declared the winner with 89.6 percent of the vote.
Sisi’s competitors included Hazem Omar of the Republican People’s Party, Farid Zahran of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, and Abdel-Sanad Yamama of the Wafd Party.
Human Rights Watch noted that Egyptian authorities employed repressive measures to eliminate potential challengers, including the imprisonment of another prospective candidate, Hisham Kassem.
Cairo continues to face criticism over its human rights record, with rights groups estimating that tens of thousands of political prisoners remain incarcerated under harsh conditions.
