Egypt’s Appeals Court, the highest judicial authority in Egypt, yesterday upheld the life sentences that were given to the spiritual leader of the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood Mohammed Badie and 36 others after their appeals were rejected.

The verdict issued by the Appeals Court is final and may not be challenged. Badie has been charged with a number of different crimes and has also been sentenced to death but this sentence is not final.

The Shubra Al-Khaimah Criminal Court sentenced Badie and other leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood including Safwat Higazi, Mohamed Beltagy, Osama Yassin (the former Minister of Youth), Bassem Ouda (the former Minister of Supply and Interior Trade) and others to life in prison in July 2014. Ten of the accused in the case were sentenced to death in absentia.

The defendants were accused of inciting violence and blocking a main road in the Nile Delta city of Qalyubia after the breakup of the Rabiah Al-Adwiyah sit in and protests by supporters of the ousted president Mohamed Morsi that took place in July 2013.

Meanwhile, calls were made to expand the political participation of the youth and to support their freedoms on the second day of Egypt’s first ever National Youth Conference (NYC) which was launched on Tuesday in Sharm El-Sheikh under the auspices of President El-Sisi.

Participants in a session entitled “The relationship between public freedoms and political participation” stressed that successive constitutions in Egypt have ensured the political freedom of every citizen and have considered it a fundamental right. They also stressed that the 2014 constitution was the most liberal in terms of guaranteeing freedoms.