28/08/2020 (Agence Europe) – The European Parliament, led by Maria Arena (S&D, Belgium), Chair of the Sub-Committee on Human Rights, Isabel Santos (S&D, Portugal), Chair of the Delegation for relations with the Mashreq countries, and Mounir Satouri (Greens/EFA, France), rapporteur for the Committee on Foreign Affairs on Egypt, condemned on Friday 28 August the 15-year prison sentence pronounced on Bahey el-Din Hassan, founder of the Egyptian human rights movement and director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies. The verdict was handed down in absentia under the laws against cybercrime. “This is the harshest decision ever handed down against a director of an Egyptian human rights NGO and it represents another step in a campaign of reprisals” against human rights activists in Egypt, they said. (SP)