[JURIST] The February decision from the Cairo Court for Urgent Matters [official backgrounder] declaring [JURIST report] the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas [official website, in Arabic] a terrorist organization was annulled on Friday. The initial decision was based on lawsuits [Daily News Egypt report] alleging that Hamas is responsible for multiple attacks against Egyptian security forces, which have resulted in casualties and deaths. According to reports from Arab news sources [i24 News report], the motion was withdrawn by the lawyer who initially filed it after mediation took place between Egyptian officials and Hamas members. Despite a December ruling from the EU Court of Justice [official website], the EU continues to list Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Political conflict in Egypt has been ongoing since the ouster of former president Mohammad Morsi [BBC backgrounder] in 2013, and political backlash has been particularly strong against his Muslim Brotherhood [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] party. Earlier in March an Egyptian court sentenced [JURIST report] a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and 13 others to death after finding them guilty of planning attacks against the state. Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie has been sentenced to death before, although the sentences were later reduced to life imprisonment. In January the Cairo Court for Urgent Matters banned and declared [JURIST report] Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed branch of Hamas, to be a terrorist group. Egypt has faced criticism for its mass death sentences of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, including sentencing 648 people to death [JURIST report] last April.