CAIRO — Days after a court-ordered ban on the April 6 Movement, a few hundred of its members ridiculed the government during a protest in defiance of Egypt’s protest law, holding up balloons and a cake in mock celebration of the ban, and a watermelon inscribed, “Your mother is banned.”

A court on April 28 ordered a freeze on April 6 activities, charging the movement with defamation of the state and espionage. The group has been the target of smear campaigns by opponents and officials since the spring 2011 uprising, facing similar accusations from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) that assumed power after President Hosni Mubarak resigned.

But this is the first time the movement has been legally banned, a move some Egyptian parties this week are describing as politicized, and which the US government called “troubling.”

“We are here to celebrate the ban with sarcasm because since our founding the government has been trying to ruin our image, and this is the price of struggle we have paid — from martyrs to people being jailed — not just from our movement but the whole nation,” April 6 leader Zizo Abdo told Al-Monitor. “We will continue paying this price until we get justice in this country.”