Keep up pressure, Fahmy’s wife urges
Ottawa has formally asked Egypt’s president to pardon imprisoned journalist Mohamed Fahmy or allow his deportation to Canada, his wife said Monday as she implored Conservative Leader Stephen Harper to secure her husband’s release.
The development comes after an Egyptian court sentenced Fahmy to three years in prison on Saturday — a verdict that shocked his family and led many international observers to call for his release.
“Nobody understands how this happened,” his wife Marwa Omara told The Canadian Press from Cairo. “I just hope the Canadian government gets Mohamed out from here.”
It’s the second time Fahmy has landed behind bars in the same case. He was originally arrested in December 2013 with two colleagues while working for satellite news broadcaster Al-Jazeera English and faced widely denounced terror charges.
The trio spent more than a year in prison before an appeal of their convictions resulted in a second trial, although one of them, Australian Peter Greste, was abruptly deported.
Fahmy and his other colleague, Egyptian Baher Mohamed, were granted bail after the start of their retrial, which resulted in Saturday’s verdict. Fahmy was sentenced for failing to register with the country’s journalist syndicate, bringing in equipment without security approval, and broadcasting “false news” on Al-Jazeera.
Omara said while the applications for Fahmy’s pardon or deportation have been filed by the Canadian Embassy with Egyptian officials, sustained pressure from Ottawa is needed.
“This is an opportunity for Mr. Harper to prove to us that he’s not accepting his Canadian citizens to be in prisons unjustly,” she said. “We’re totally drained from this experience. It’s very hard for us to go through all of this again.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs would not detail what specific efforts Canada was making in Fahmy’s case. A spokeswoman would only say Canadian officials have raised the case with Egyptian officials “at the highest level” and would continue to do so.