Egypt lawyers end strike after colleagues released

Members of the Egyptian Bar Association on Sunday called off a days-long strike held in protest against the jailing of six colleagues, a statement said.

The association had announced Thursday an open-ended strike to condemn their colleagues’ sentencing to two years in jail over a court brawl earlier this month.

The bar association decided “to cancel the suspension of work”, it said in the statement.

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The move came after an appeals court on Sunday ordered the six be released and scheduled a verdict for February 5.

The lawyers had been sentenced on Wednesday for their part in the fight with three clerks during a court session in Marsa Matrouh on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast on January 5, according to state-run daily Al-Ahram.

The association had earlier claimed there was “a clear intention” by authorities to keep the six lawyers in detention “without real justification”, denouncing a “rush to bring them to trial without taking the time to carry out a real investigation”.

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Last month, in a rare display of dissent in a country where public demonstrations are banned, thousands of lawyers demonstrated in Cairo against the government’s introduction of a new electronic invoicing system.

© Agence France-Presse