An
Egyptian court on Monday convicted three journalist from media network Al-Jazeera English and sentenced them
to 7 years in prison each, on terrorism-related charges.
The verdict today
attracted criticism around the world, describing it as a blow to freedom of
expression.
The journalists:
Peter Greste (Australian), Mohammed Fahmy (Canadian-Egyptian) and Baher
Mohammed ( Egyptian), have been detained since a December raid on their Cairo
hotel room, which they were using as an office as they covered protests by
supporters of the ousted Islamist president.
The raid was part
of a broad crackdown against Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood.
According
to Huffington Post, they had pleaded innocent, saying
they were simply doing their jobs as journalists. But they were charged with
supporting the Brotherhood, which has been declared a terrorist organization,
and of fabricating footage to undermine Egypt’s national security and make it
appear the country was facing civil war.
The prosecution provided little
evidence in the case, showing video footage found in their possession — most of
which had nothing to do with the case, including a report on a veterinary
hospital in Cairo, Christian life and old footage of Greste from previous
assignments elsewhere in Africa.
“I swear they will pay for this,” Fahmy, who was Al-Jazeera English’s
acting Cairo bureau chief, shouted angrily from the defendants’ cage after the
sentences were announced in the Cairo court Monday. Greste, a correspondent,
raised his fists in the air.
“They just ruined a family,” said Fahmy’s brother Adel, who was
attending the session. He said they would appeal the verdict but added that he
had little faith in the system. “Everything is corrupt,” he said. Greste’s brother
Andrew said he was “gutted” and also vowed to appeal.
Australian Foreign Minister,
Julia Bishop said, “We are all shocked by this verdict,” adding that the
government would contact newly elected Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi
and ask him to intervene in the case.
“The
Australian government urges the new government of Egypt to reflect what message
is being sent to the world,” she said. “We are deeply concerned that this
verdict is part of a broader attempt to muzzle media freedoms.”
The
three received sentences of seven years each in a maximum security prison.
Mohammed, the team’s producer, received an extra three years because of
additional charges of possession of ammunition. Al-Jazeera has said that charge
was rooted in a spent shell found in his possession — a souvenir he’d picked up
from protests.
There
were 17 other co-defendants in the case. Among them, two British journalists
and a Dutch journalist who were not in Egypt and eight others being tried in
absentia each received 10-year prison sentences. Two of them were acquitted,
including the son of Mohammed el-Beltagy, a senior figure in the Muslim
Brotherhood. Most of the co-defendants were students, arrested separately and
accused of giving footage to the journalists.
The
managing director of Qatar-based Al-Jazeera English, Al Anstey, said in a
statement that “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.
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