CAIRO: An Egyptian appeals court jailed a female Coptic Christian teacher for six months after parents of her students accused her of evangelising and insulting Islam, her lawyer said yesterday.
The primary school teacher had appealed after a court in the southern city of Luxor fined her 100,000 Egyptian pounds (around $13,980 or ¤10,325) after some parents filed a case against her.
The prosecution, which also appealed the original sentence, had asked for a jail sentence.
On Sunday the appeals court issued its verdict, her lawyer Badawi Abu Shanab said, adding that she can still lodge a further appeal before the court of cassation.
“She has been jailed for six months. She was accused of making derogatory comments against Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him)”, Abu Shanab said.
Egypt’s constitution outlaws insults against the three monotheist religions recognised by the state — Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
CAIRO: An Egyptian police captain was killed yesterday in a shootout on the southern outskirts of Cairo with alleged supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Mursi, the interior ministry said.
Since the military ousted Mursi last July, Egypt has been rocked by near-daily violence with hundreds of police dead in militant attacks and more than 1,000 Mursi supporters killed in street clashes with security forces.
The police officer was shot dead during an operation targeting five wanted members of Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, the ministry said. The five were “implicated in many violent acts and attacks on police cars and electricity transmission pylons”, it added.
Prosecutors issued arrest warrants for the five, saying they were planning further attacks against the police. The men were in a car when they “opened fire on security forces and tried to escape” as police moved in to arrest them, the ministry said.
SANA’A: Clashes between government forces and Shia Huthi rebels in northern Yemen have killed dozens in the 24 hours since a ceasefire between the two sides collapsed, tribal and military sources said yesterday.
The fighting that started on Sunday continued intermittently yesterday in the area around Jabal Al Dhine, a mountainous region some 50km north of the capital Sanaa, the sources said.
Government forces repelled three rebel attacks, which were supported by armed tribesmen, killing 23 attackers, a tribal source said.
The assaults in the Jabal al-Dhine area on the southern entrance to the tense Amran province also left “several” soldiers dead, the source added. A military official said three soldiers had been killed late on Sunday.
Rebels have advanced to the city of Hamdan in Sanaa province, where the Yemeni capital is located, sparking clashes that killed 12 tribal fighters and 11 Huthis, tribal and army sources said. It was not possible to independently verify the tolls from the clashes.
The latest round of fighting between the Shia Huthi rebels, known as Ansarullah, and government forces erupted on Sunday, ending an 11-day truce reached with mediation backed by United Nations envoy Jamal Benomar.
The Huthis are suspected of trying to broaden their sphere of influence as Yemen is split into six regions, pushing out from their mountain strongholds in the far north to areas closer to Sanaa.
The rebels complained Yemen would be divided into rich and poor regions under a federalisation plan agreed in February following national talks as part of a political transition.Agencies
