Three journalists for Al-Jazeera English were sentenced to seven years in prison by an Egyptian court Monday, prompting condemnation from the international community. 

The three journalists were given the prison sentences on charges of helping a "terrorist organization" by publishing falsehoods. The international community has deemed the sentences a repression of freedom of speech, according to Haaretz. 

The three journalists — Canadian-Egyptian Mohammed Fahmy, Australian Peter Greste and Egyptian Baher Mohammed —have been detained since December, when their hotel room in Cairo was raided. The journalists had been using the hotel room as an office to cover the protests of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. The raid on the journalists was part of a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists. 

The journalists pleaded innocent, saying they were simply covering protests objectively. However, the court charged them with actively supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been declared a terrorist organization in Egypt. They were also charged with creating footage to make the country appear as if it was in a civil war, which the court claimed undermined Egyptian security. 

The prosecution did not have much evidence to support their claims. They showed video footage found in the journalists' possession that was unrelated to the case, including a report on a veterinary hospital in Cairo and footage from previous assignments in Africa. 

"I swear they will pay for this," Fahmy, who was Al-Jazeera English's acting Cairo bureau chief, shouted from the defendant's cage. 

"They just ruined a family," said Fahmy's brother Adel, who was attending the session, tolHaaretz. 

They can appeal the verdict, but Abdel said he does not have faith that it will be successfully appealed. "Everything is corrupt," he said. 

"We are all shocked by this verdict," Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said. She said that the new Egyptian President, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, should intervene in the case. 

"The Australian government urges the new government of Egypt to reflect what message is being sent to the world," she told reporters. "We are deeply concerned that this verdict is part of a broader attempt to muzzle media freedoms."

The three journalists will spend seven years in a maximum security prison, and Mohammed, the producer of the team, will spend an extra three years behind bars because of weapons possession charges. Al-Jazeera contended that the weapon was nothing more than a used shell, which he took as a souvenir from the protests. 

Seventeen other co-defendants in the case included two British journalists and one Dutch journalist, and eight others who were tried in abstentia. Each received 10-year prison sentences, and two other defendants were acquitted. Most of the co-defendants were students who were arrested at the time of the protests and accused of providing the journalists with video footage. 

Al Anstey, the managing director of Al-Jazeera English, told Haaretz. "Not a shred of evidence was found to support the extraordinary and false charges against them.

"To have detained them for 177 days is an outrage. To have sentenced them defies logic, sense, and any semblance of justice," he said.

The widespread crackdown on the journalists and Muslim Brotherhood supporters has raised fear of the repression of any form of government dissent. Security forces have already killed hundreds of Morsi supporters and arrested thousands.

British ambassador James Watt, who attended the session, said he was very disappointed in the verdict. "Freedom of expression is fundamental to any democracy," he told Haaretz. 

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott spoke with al-Sisi before the verdicts Monday to defend Greste. 

"I did make the point that as an Australian journalist, Peter Greste, would not have been supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, he would have simply been reporting on the Muslim Brotherhood," Abbott said.  "The point I made was that in the long run, a free and vigorous media are good for democracy, good for security, (and) good for stability."  

United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay said Monday that Egypt should release the three reporters. She said the convictions, as well as the death sentences for 183 Muslim Brotherhood members that were confirmed Saturday are "obscene and a complete travesty of justice".