This is real. This is factual. This is not fake news.
A 3-year-old Egyptian boy was sentenced to life in prison in December 2016. Shocking.
How did a boy so young end up in this dilemma?
According to the Egyptian government, Ahmed Mansour Karni’s supposed crimes were three murders and sabotaging public property during the protests of 2014. Astonishingly the little boy was just 16 months when he committed these crimes.
During these protests in Al Fayoum, a city in central Egypt, people took to the streets to oppose the government as constitutional reform was going on. During the protests, the security officials clashed with protesters which resulted in some casualties.
2 years later Karni and 115 other anti-regime protesters were charged. When he was sentenced to life in prison his father Mansour Karni broke down and cried on national television.
"Please promise me that my son and I can go home safe without being questioned by authorities," he said as he begged the country's Minister of Interior on live TV.
When this outrageous news got on social media people started tweeting about it and it created global awareness. This embarrassed the Egyptian government and it exposed the deficiencies of its judicial system
After much pressure, the Egyptian government explained that the young boy's arrest and sentence were based on a clerical error.
Now that it has owned up to its mistake, the Egyptian government has announced that it is looking for a 51-year-old man with the same name as the boy.
Strangely, a spokesperson for the Egyptian military announced on Facebook that it was also looking for a 16-year-old male who also happens to bear the same name as the toddler.
At the end of the day, if not for social media, little Ahmed Mansour Karni would have been locked up for life.
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