PROTEST: Lawyers march in Cairo after the death of colleague Karim Hamdy in the Police Department in March. Two Egyptian policemen were detained. More than 200 lawyers are behind bars in Egypt for defending the government's Islamist opponents, according to attorneys and human rights groups. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
CAIRO (Reuters) - As Egypt cracks down on its Islamist dissidents, many of the country's lawyers are finding themselves on the wrong side of the law as well. Attorney Mohsen al-Bahnasy says so many fellow lawyers have been arrested or charged in recent months that he now spends much of his time defending them in court.
One of the lawyers he represents is accused of distributing leaflets supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group banned by the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. According to Bahnasy, his client, a lawyer, was in a police station with his own clients at the time of the alleged crime. Bahnasy says the lawyer, like others deemed sympathetic to the Brotherhood, has never distributed such leaflets and is the victim of trumped-up charges.
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