Veteran Egyptian journalist Khaled El-Balshy has told The New Arab that he is due to be interrogated next week after a number of citizens filed legal complaints against him for allegedly running fake news.

An Egyptian state security court sentenced on Monday sentenced 11 people to prison in a case dubbed the “Hisham Ashmawy terrorist cell”, according to the official state-run Middle East News Agency (MENA).

Revenge is a dish best served cold in Egypt, where the highest court has called on the government to sue France over the killing of a captured Egyptian officer during the 1956 Suez Crisis.

The former acting leader of Egypt’s opposition group the Muslim Brotherhood criticised his detention conditions in a rare court appearance shared widely in an online video on Thursday.

A prominent Egyptian human rights activist was released Thursday after serving her sentence on charges of spreading false news and insulting a police officer, her lawyer and family said.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has condemned Egypt’s initiation of at least five Emergency State Security Court trials against high-profile human rights defenders, activists and political opponents on alleged speech offences and called to immediately halt the “unjust trials” where no appeal is possible.

Spokesperson for Egyptian Foreign Ministry Ahmed Hafez said that “it is in appropriate to comment or touch on Egyptian court rulings,” in response to a question about statements made by US State Department saying U.S. is disappointed by an Egyptian court’s sentencing.

Prominent Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah has been sentenced to five years in prison, his sister and a judicial source said, after being tried on charges of spreading fake news.

A criminal court in Egypt yesterday sentenced deputy guide of the Muslim Brotherhood Mahmoud Izzat to life imprisonment over allegations of spying for Hamas, Arabi21 reported.

Researchers and academics in Egypt risk being arrested, prosecuted, or placed in arbitrary pretrial detention, a report by the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has warned.