Egypt’s jailing of journalists is an outrage
A Canadian journalist is locked up in an Egyptian jail, after being sentenced this week to seven years in prison on terrorismrelated charges for doing nothing more than practising his craft.
Mohamed Fahmy, the Cairo bureau chief for Al-Jazeera’s English network, was arrested with two colleagues — Australian Peter Greste and Egyptian Baher Mohamed — last December as they covered unrest sparked by the coup against Egypt’s elected Islamist government. The trio is among about 20 Al-Jazeera journalists jailed by the military-backed regime of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
Journalists are the eyes and ears of citizens and the world at large. No wonder, then, that they all too often find themselves targeted by those who would stymie human and democratic rights. Autocrats don’t want foreigners — or their own citizens — to know what is really going on in their countries.
The incarceration of journalists has become a potent symbol of Egypt’s regression into autocracy after the promising developments of the 2011 Arab Spring. It’s nothing short of outrageous that Fahmy and his colleagues now sit in a putrid jail on trumped up charges after a sham trial, simply for their roles in informing the world about what is going on in Egypt. But adding insult to injury is the Canadian government’s lacklustre response.
While other world leaders like British Prime Minister David Cameron, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry condemned the verdict and sentences in the strongest language, telephoned el-Sissi or summoned Egyptian ambassadors, Canada’s junior minister of consular affairs said she was “very disappointed.”
When called out for their muted reaction, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said “bullhorn diplomacy” wouldn’t work and Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada has been “very clear” in expressing “deep concerns” to Egypt.
The Canadian response is as puzzling as it is problematic.
Whether standing alone or with its allies, Canada normally has no difficulty denouncing reprehensible behaviour by foreign governments.
Fahmy’s family has praised Canada for the consular services provided during the last many months, but given the outcome, quiet diplomacy seems to have failed. Loud and direct pressure on Egypt now seems warranted, even if el-Sissi has said he won’t interfere with the rulings.
There is a recent precedent for a muscular campaign. The government successfully pushed for the release of Canadian documentary filmmakers Tarek Loubani and John Greyson, who were detained in Egypt in 2013 under a similar pretext. Fahmy’s situation is more complicated, in that he holds dual Canadian-Egyptian citizenship.
However the dual-citizenship issue didn’t stop the Canadian government from lambasting Iran for the imprisonment, rape and murder of photojournalist Zahra Kazemi in 2003. So there is no reason Canada should not speak out strongly to protect Fahmy’s rights to due process, free expression and, of course, liberty.
The issues here go far beyond the fate of one man. In failing to vociferously condemn Egypt’s detention of Fahmy, and indeed all its political prisoners, Canada is tacitly condoning a broader campaign of anti-democratic and abusive behaviour, supposedly in the name of bringing stability. Since toppling the Muslim Brotherhood in a coup, el-Sissi has imprisoned its leader Mohammed Morsi — Egypt’s elected president — and sentenced hundreds of his supporters to death. The regime has also cracked down on the free press, equating journalism with terror.
This kind of repression is not only morally wrong, it is politically wrong-headed. It erodes the regime’s own legitimacy, thus ultimately increasing the popularity of Islamist forces.
Canada has a duty to make its concerns known to the Egyptian government in the strongest terms possible — all the more so when the freedom of one of its own citizens is at stake.