A court in Egypt has sentenced the prominent human rights activist Sanaa Seif to 18 months in jail after finding her guilty of “spreading false news”. Seif was detained in June as she tried to file a complaint about an assault that she had allegedly suffered. Prosecutors later accused her of making unfounded claims about the handling of Covid-19 outbreaks in Egyptian prisons. Amnesty International said she had been convicted “on bogus charges stemming purely from her peaceful criticism”. President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has overseen what human rights groups say is an unprecedented crackdown on dissent since leading the military’s overthrow of Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, in 2013 following protests against his rule.(BBC)…[+]