Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi could still pardon three jailed Al Jazeera journalists who are now facing a retrial if he deems it appropriate, the country's foreign minister said on Tuesday.
Egypt's highest court has ordered a retrial of three jailed journalists working for Al Jazeera television, citing procedural flaws in last year's trial, defense lawyers said on Thursday.
Egyptian and Qatari intelligence officials have met in Cairo to discuss reconciliation as part of Saudi-brokered efforts to end an 18-month standoff over Doha's support of the Muslim Brotherhood, security and diplomatic sources said.
Egypt on Thursday cleared a final hurdle to long-awaited parliamentary elections seen as decisive in cementing the rule of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ousted President Mohamed Mursi, and excluding the banned Muslim Brotherhood from politics.
Egypt's public prosecutor said on Tuesday he had appealed against a court decision to drop charges against former president Hosni Mubarak, his interior minister and six aides over the killing of protesters in a 2011 uprising.
An Egyptian judge sentenced the leader of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and 25 others on Sunday to three years in jail for insulting the court, a day after charges were dropped against ousted president Hosni Mubarak over the killing of protesters.
Protests erupted at universities across Egypt on Sunday, condemning a court decision to drop criminal charges against Hosni Mubarak, the president whose ouster in the 2011 uprising raised hopes of a new era of political openness.
An Egyptian committee investigating political violence made a rare break on Wednesday with judicial support for heavy-handed state tactics, recommending the government should amend a law restricting protest.
Jordan arrested the deputy head of the country's Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday for criticizing the UAE's move to designate the Islamist political movement and its local affiliates a terrorist group, official sources said.
Egypt's interior ministry said on Wednesday it had arrested an Egyptian militant who had returned from fighting in Syria with a group linked to the al Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front in order to train Egyptians in bombmaking.
The United Arab Emirates has formally designated the Muslim Brotherhood and local affiliates as terrorist groups, state news agency WAM reported on Saturday citing a cabinet decree.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's government defended its human rights record against Western and regional critics at a United Nations hearing on Wednesday, declaring that personal freedoms were among its prime concerns.
When Sunni rebels rose up against Syria's Bashar al-Assad in 2011, Turkey reclassified its protégé as a pariah, expecting him to lose power within months and join the autocrats of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen on the scrap heap of the "Arab Spring".
In his first 100 days in office, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has made a fast start on economic reform: slashing costly fuel subsidies, raising taxes and devising infrastructure projects to secure long-term revenues and ease unemployment.
An Egyptian court sentenced 68 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to jail terms on Tuesday, judicial sources said, in a case related to deadly violence a year ago after the army's ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.
Egypt has accused Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan of supporting terrorists and seeking to provoke mayhem in the Middle East after he questioned the legitimacy of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in a speech at the UN General Assembly.
An Egyptian court sentenced a leader of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and an Islamist cleric to 20 years in prison on Tuesday for attempting to kill two policemen, part of a government crackdown that has severely weakened the group.
Saudi Arabia's Specialized Criminal Court jailed six people for up to six years for security offences including traveling abroad to fight, adopting militant ideology and "breaking obedience to the ruler", state media reported late on Sunday.
Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy, and Baher Mohamed were handed out a seven-year sentence in a maximum security prison in the country each on Monday over charges of spreading false news and supporting terrorism, Buzzfeed reported.
Egyptian General Hani Abdellatif revealed to Buzzfeed his government's new campaign to crack down on online users who instigate or influence people of ideas that goes against the country.
Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammad Badie and 683 others had been sentenced to death by an Egyptian court on Monday, the same court who handed out capital sentences to hundreds of others last month, CNN said.
