A court in Egypt has reduced a death sentence against the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood to life imprisonment amid Cairo’s harsh crackdown on members of the political movement.

The Cairo court decided on Saturday to commute the death penalty for Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie to life in prison. He had initially been sentenced to death over fatal riots in the capital last August.

Meanwhile, seven other Brotherhood leaders also received life sentences in the Saturday ruling, while the Egyptian court handed death sentences to six others who were tried in absentia.

Last July, Egypt’s former President Mohamed Morsi was toppled in a military coup led by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the country’s current president and then army commander.

Since then, the country’s military-backed government has launched a bloody crackdown on Morsi’s supporters and arrested thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members, including the party’s senior leaders.

Many of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders are currently behind bars or in exile.

In December 2013, the Egyptian government officially designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist” group, accusing it of being behind a deadly bombing in the city of Mansoura. The Brotherhood has condemned the bomb attack, denying any links to the incident.

Human Rights Watch has denounced the Egyptian government for labeling the Brotherhood as a terrorist group, saying the move “appears to be aimed at expanding the crackdown on peaceful Brotherhood activities and imposing harsh sanctions on its supporters.”

Reports say as many as 1,400 people have been killed in the political violence that erupted following Morsi’s deposal.