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Press freedom on trial in Egypt

May 2, 2015 at 12:23 pm

In December 2013, Canadian-Egyptian journalist Mohamed Fahmy, Australian reporter Peter Greste, and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed were arrested in Cairo. They were convicted of promoting or belonging to a terrorist organization (the Muslim Brotherhood, which had been ousted in a military coup in July that year) and of spreading “false news” with the intention of harming national security. The trial, widely seen as a farce, caused international outrage, and they faced sentences of up to ten years. While the Egyptian authorities held steady on the verdict for many months, an appeal judge also eventually condemned the proceedings and ordered a retrial.

After more than 400 days in prison, the three men were released: Greste was deported to Australia and a week later, Fahmy and Mohamed were let out on bail. This week, there was an unexpected turn in the long-running case, when a committee investigating the evidence against Fahmy and Mohamed announced that the pair had not fabricated news footage. The technical committee had been appointed in March, after the testimonies and findings of the previous committee collapsed: members of the last team gave contradictory statements under cross-examination and admitted to not having watched all the videos.

Now, a 280-page technical report said that the video evidence collected by security officials in the original case was raw footage that had not been fabricated by the three journalists. “It’s a victory because they straight out said there was no editing or fabrication of any sort in the videos that are so-called evidence against us,” says Fahmy. “This is great for us. Me and Baher were giving each other high-fives in the cage when we heard this.” Proceedings in the trial have now been adjourned to 9 May.

It is possible that the focus of the trial will now shift from the more serious allegations of terrorism and fabricating news, to the allegations of technical violations, which would carry a lighter sentence, which might even be covered by the time already served. Fahmy has been publicly critical of his employers at Al-Jazeera, accusing them of exposing him and his colleagues to danger by not warning them that there were technical issues with their licences in Egypt. (“We’re supporting him and will continue to do so,” Al-Jazeera said in response. “We are focused on getting him and his colleagues out of this predicament.”)

In a statement, Al-Jazeera has conceded that the three journalists were not fully accredited by the authorities, but pointed out that in most countries when this happens, it is an administrative matter, not an offence carrying a custodial sentence. Of course, the case must be seen in the wider context of Egypt’s crackdown on press freedom. Following the coup in July 2013, the authorities arrested and prosecuted dozens of journalists. Many of them have been freed, but according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least nine are still in prison, on charges like incitement to violence and participation in illegal protest. Egypt was one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists in 2014. Even if the Al-Jazeera journalists are finally freed from the trumped up trial that has already taken years of their lives, there is clearly a long way to go for press freedom in Egypt.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.