Egyptian judge frees women jailed over protest The adult women were originally sentenced to 11 years in a single court hearing last month four weeks after the pro-Morsi protest near the Alexandria sea-front. The judge gave them six years for holding an illegal gathering, four years for thuggery, a year for possessing weapons and one month for criminal damage. The minors were sentenced to juvenile custody without term on the same charges. The length of the sentences - and the pictures of the women in white prison uniform and hijab sitting in the caged dock - caused an outcry across Egypt, and even supporters of the military-backed interim government demanded their release. International human rights groups condemned the case as an abuse of justice and process. Families of some of the girls said they would continue their appeals until their daughters were acquitted altogether. Thank God for this! He has shown that truth will out," said Mohammed Reda Mohammed, whose 15-year-old sister Salma was among the juveniles accused. My father and my mother's hearts were about to stop before this ruling. We cried. It has been a very tough experience, but God gave us patience. We will still appeal the verdict and the three months' probation. We want them to be found innocent. Ramadan el-Saadany, who says his wife, Salwa, and daughter Rawda, were just walking past the protest when they were bundled into a police van, said: "God didn't let us down. We will appeal, because we are sure they are innocent. Families of the accused said that the charges did not even seem to match the prosecution case, which said the protest caused little disruption, and the only damage was a scratch to a door from a stone thrown at a building which was estimated at costing 50 Egyptian pounds - £5 - to put right. There was no evidence put forward linking the defendants individually to the damage, nor that they were carrying weapons.