The trial of prominent 25 January activists Ahmed Douma, Ahmed Maher and Mohamed Adel was cancelled due to the intense police deployment aimed to secure the trial of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in east Cairo Wednesday, Al-Ahram's Arabic news website reported.

The Cairo appellate court in Torah, southern Cairo, was set on Wednesday to hear an appeal by the activists against a three-year jail term handed to them by a criminal court in December for breaching a newly issued protest law.

Sources told Al-Ahram's Arabic news website that security forces were busy with the tense security situation around the Police Academy in New Cairo, where Morsi's trial had been scheduled at the same time planned for the activists' trial.

A new timing for the activists' cancelled session is yet to be determined.

Founder of the April 6 Youth movement Ahmed Maher, member Mohamed Adel and long-time activist Ahmed Douma, three leading figures of the protests that ignited the popular revolt that deposed president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, were sentenced last month to three years in jail and fined LE50,000 each on charges of organising illegal protests and assaulting police officers in November.

The case has fuelled fears among other activists and human rights organisations of an expanding crackdown against secular opposition by the country's interim authorities.

The criminal court has also adjourned Morsi's case, along with another 14 co-defendants all charged with inciting murder, to 1 February due to Morsi's absence in the courtroom.

https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/91069.aspx