Egyptian activist Ahmed Maher free

cairo - Egyptian activist Ahmed Maher (36) has been released after serving his sentence Wednesday, the BBC reported. He is the founder of the April 6 Youth Movement and one of the leaders of the revolt that President Hosni Mubarak's regime overturned early 2011. Maher may now have at least three years out of the country.

Maher was convicted in 2013 along with two other activists, Mohammed Adel and Ahmed Douma, to prison sentences. Maher and Adel got three years for applicants without official permission and attacking agents. Douma was sentenced to life because he had incited riots and attacks on security forces.

The April 6 Youth Movement was founded in 2008 following protest strikes on that day in the industrial town of al-Mahalla al-Kubra. The movement primarily conducted through Facebook and other social media action for democratization. The movement was banned by the current regime in 2014.

Since the military seized power in 1952, Egypt almost continuously ruled by the military. The current leader Abdul Fattah al-Sisi seized power in 2013. His regime, according to human rights movements much more repressive than Mubarak or even that of the first coup perpetrator himself, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970).