A blogger who criticised Egypt's military has been given a three-year prison sentence.
Human Rights Watch said the sentence suggests that the country's military rulers are drawing red lines around permissible speech.
The military council ruling Egypt said 25-year-old activist Maikel Nabil had used 'inappropriate language' and defamed the military and that his call for military conscription to be scrapped would have a negative effect on young Egyptians.
Army officers arrested Mr Nabil on 28 March at his home in Cairo and the military prosecutor charged him with insulting the military establishment and 'spreading false information'.
Mr Nabil's lawyers were told the judge would rule on 12 April but they discovered on 11 April that he had already been sentenced a day earlier in their absence.
'Maikel Nabil's three-year sentence may be the worst strike against free expression in Egypt since the Mubarak government jailed the first blogger for four years in 2007,' said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
The sentence will only be final once ratified by the chief of the military district, said HRW, calling on the army to drop all charges against Mr Nabil and release him immediately.
Since a popular uprising ousted President Hosni Mubarak on 11 February, the country's military rulers have promised free and fair elections and an end to three decades of emergency rule.
Heads of state media seen as too close to Mr Mubarak's government have been replaced and a lively public debate on issues ranging from high-level corruption to government mismanagement is under way.
The army enjoys broad popular support, but has come under growing criticism from pro-democracy activists who accuse it of unfairly detaining peaceful protestors.
