UN High Commissioner for Human Rights urged Egypt on Tuesday to end its controversial “rotation” practice which allows authorities to arbitrarily extend prison sentences beyond their maximum term.

Rotation is typically used to persecute perceived political opponents such as activists, protestors, lawyers, and journalists and involves charging a prisoner with a new offense when they are about to be released, extending their prison term indefinitely. Often new charges are for extremely similar, if not identical, offenses under the vaguely-defined Anti-Terrorism Law .

The UN has previously decried this practice and Egypt’s anti-terrorism laws, specifically noting how rotation violates the “double jeopardy” rule which states that someone cannot be punished more than once for the same o

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