Egypt

Almost 15,000 Egyptians have flocked home from war-torn Libya via the border crossing at Sallum, state media reported on Feb. 23, after Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group jihadists murdered 21 Coptic Christians.
      

PM condemns acts of terror targeting Egyptians

BELGRADE -- Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic met on Monday with Egypt's Ambassador to Serbia Menha Mahrous Bakhoum and condemned the attacks on Egyptian citizens in Libya.

The ambassador stressed the support of Egypt for Serbia's "moderate and responsible policy."

BELGRADE - Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic met on Monday with Egypt's Ambassador to Serbia Menha Mahrous Bakhoum and condemned the attacks on Egyptian citizens in Libya, while the ambassador stressed the support of Egypt for Serbia's moderate and responsible policy.

An Egyptian court on Feb. 23 sentenced Alaa Abdel Fattah, a leading dissident in the 2011 uprising that toppled strongman Hosni Mubarak, to five years in prison over an illegal protest.
      
The remaining 24 defendants in the case received sentences ranging from three to 15 years.
      

A stampede at a Cairo stadium earlier this month, much like a politically-loaded football brawl in the Suez Canal city of Port Said three years ago, is shining a spotlight on Egypt's unreformed, unabashedly violent, and politically powerful police and security forces amid confusion over what precisely happened and how many fans died.

At a time when Jihadists are burning and beheading people, or cutting off women’s hands off because they used cellphones, the nightmare of a new round of mass executions surfaced after 35 Egyptian Coptic farmers were kidnapped in Libya in retribution for Egypt’s air raids.

An Egyptian military court will try deposed president Mohamed Morsi and 198 Islamist leaders and supporters over a deadly protest in 2013 following his overthrow, a prosecution source said Feb. 18
      
The defendants in the trial, which will start on February 23, also include Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, the official MENA news agency reported.
     

A recent stampede in which at least 19 Egyptian football ultras due to the actions of security forces suggests that the government of General-turned-President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has no intention of easing its crackdown on political dissent.

Two Al-Jazeera journalists were freed feb. 13 from an Egyptian prison pending retrial, their families said, after spending more than a year in jail in a case that provoked global uproar.
      
A Cairo court on Feb. 12 ordered the release of Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, an Egyptian, who are facing retrial on charges of supporting the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned the chargé d'affaires of Egypt's Embassy in Ankara Hussein Elsaharty late on Feb. 11 to convey Ankara's "uneasiness" over Egyptian officials' accusations over Arabic TV channels broadcasting online to Egypt from Turkey.