( CNN ) Prominent Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah was sentenced Monday to five years in prison and fined $ 13,000 on charges of protesting and assaulting police . Eighteen others were sentenced to three years in prison and also fined $ 13,000 each . The case dates back to November 2013 when the controversial protest law was issued by the government . Dozens demonstrated against the military trial of civilians outside the Shoura Council where the committee writing the country 's constitution was meeting . Police later dispersed the crowd and arrested dozens of activists . It was the first day the law had come into effect . Police accused demonstrators of failing to acquire permission . Activists who refuse to recognize the legislation say the police violated the law by using excessive force . Ahmed Abdel-Rahman -- who , like Abdel-Fattah , was also sentenced to 5 years -- was not a protester , but a bystander who intervened to protect women assaulted by plainclothes policemen that day , lawyers told the court . `` It does n't make any sense . ( Egpytian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ) says yesterday ' I 'm going to release the young people ' and today we get these sentences , '' said Khaled Dawood , spokesman of the Constitution Party , in reference to el-Sisi 's speech the night before in which he announced the imminent release of youth wrongfully held in prisons . Dawood told CNN this and similar sentences contribute to the closure of political space and dissuade youth from constructive political engagement . The 24 defendants were previously sentenced to 15 years . This was their retrial , seen by the same judge presiding over the Al Jazeera journalists ' retrial . Five defendants did n't file the appeal , were tried in absentia and consequently their 15-year sentences were upheld . One final stage of appeal is left . Abdel-Fattah , one of the leading opposition voices , was repeatedly imprisoned by consecutive regimes . It 's the first time he has been convicted . Several other prominent activists -- including his youngest sister Sanaa and Ahmed Maher , co-founder of the April 6 Youth Movement -- have been convicted of violating the protest law .
Alaa al - Hassan , one of the leading opposition figures in Egypt , received a life sentence . He was convicted on charges of protesting and assaulting police .