Egypt Sentences Student to 3 Years in Jail For Atheist Posts

A student in Egypt has reportedly been sentenced to three years in jail after announcing he is an atheist on social media.

21-year-old student Karim Ashraf Mohammed Al-Banna was arrested in Idku city in northern Egypt and sentenced to three years in jail for allegedly insulting Islam after he came out as an atheist on Facebook.

"He was handed down a three-year prison sentence, and if he pays a bail of 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($140) the sentence can be suspended until a verdict is issued by an appeals court," the 21-year-old's lawyer, Ahmed Abdel Nabi, said in a statement.

According to the Daily Mail, the 21-year-old student's own father even testified against him, telling the judge that his son "was embracing extremist ideas against Islam."

Al-Banna, an engineering student, had been arrested in November after his neighbors called police when they noticed he was discussing his atheist beliefs on Facebook.

According to the Agence Free Presse, Egypt's constitution outlaws the insulting of three religions, including Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

The is not the first time atheism has been targeted in Egypt. In 2012, atheist blogger Alber Saber was sentenced to three years imprisonment after his neighbors accused him of posting links to a film that insulted Islam and sparked protests in several Islamic countries throughout the world.

At the time of Saber's sentencing, Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, told the New York Times that the world should "expect to see many more blasphemy prosecutions in the future now that it's embedded as a crime in the constitution."