How Egypt's protest law brought down the revolution

CAIRO — Some of the country's most prominent revolutionary activists will continue their retrial Sept. 10 after being sentenced to 15 years in jail for breaking the controversial protest law. They weren't terrorists or armed protesters, yet the current regime, which they helped seize power and topple the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013, decided to include them in a nationwide crackdown aimed at eliminating dissent.

I have covered the avalanche of military trials that kicked off in the aftermath of Egypt's revolution in January 2011, visited the families of victims killed during the 18 days of protests and met with others who suffered severe injuries, but researching the Shura Council trial was different. It hit me as one of the most vivid examples of the regime's war on everything and everyone deemed revolutionary. Blacked out by the media loyal to the regime and ignored by a population told that the revolution was a conspiracy, some of Egypt's most honorable citizens could be thrown in jail over trumped-up charges and forgotten along with those they will join behind bars.

Notwithstanding the consequences of reporting on such issues in Egypt, the third most dangerous country for journalists in 2013, I decided to write the story told by some of the 25 fearlessly standing retrial for the crime of adhering to the revolution's most basic demands.

On Nov. 26, 2013, a few hundred protesters gathered in front of Egypt's Shura Council, the upper house of the parliament on the edge of Tahrir Square, the icon of the revolution smeared by years of injustice. The state-owned pro-regime media described them as violators of the protest law, but the truth is they were protesting the regime's plan to take the military trials for civilians from being an exceptional procedure under exceptional conditions to a military privilege granted full immunity by the new constitution.