Journalists sentenced in Egypt
Marwa Fahmy, wife of Canadian Al-Jazeera journalist Mohammed Fahmy, bursts into tears Saturday after her husband and two other journalists were sentenced in Cairo to three years in prison on charges of “spreading false news.” Human-rights lawyer Amal Clooney sits beside Marwa Fahmy.
CAIRO — An Egyptian court Saturday sentenced three Al-Jazeera journalists to three years in prison on charges of broadcasting without a license and “spreading false news.”
The verdict came after an appeals court granted the reporters a retrial earlier this year.
The journalists — Canadian Mohammed Fahmy, Egyptian Baher Mohammed and Australian Peter Greste — were first convicted in April 2014 of aiding a terrorist organization.
The court sentenced Greste in absentia, after authorities deported him to Australia in February of this year.
In rendering his verdict, Judge Hassan Farid said the journalists had not officially registered as members of the press, had used unlicensed equipment and had broadcast false material that was “harmful to Egypt.”
A court-appointed technical committee said earlier in the trial that it had found no evidence the reporters had manipulated footage.
“If this was an independent court, there would have been a full acquittal,” Amal Clooney, human-rights attorney and defense lawyer for Fahmy, said outside the courtroom Saturday. “This sets a dangerous precedent for journalists being imprisoned in Egypt.”
Rights groups have slammed Egypt’s judiciary for what they say are “sham trials” and harsh sentences against political dissidents. Amnesty International called Saturday’s verdict an “affront to justice.”
Greste spoke to Al-Jazeera on Saturday from Sydney and said he believed an Egyptian appeals court would overturn the verdict.
“We broke no laws; we did nothing unethical or illegal or immoral. And so it’s just incomprehensible to see how the court can come to this conclusion,” said Greste, adding that the verdict was “clearly political.”
Early today, he called on Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to pardon him and his colleagues. He said the eyes of the world are on Egypt.
“It is now up to President Sissi to do what he said he would do from the outset — and that is pardon us if we were ever convicted,” Greste said.
“This is a wrong; everyone knows it is wrong.”
Egypt clamped down on freedom of the press after a military coup ousted Muslim Brotherhood leader and Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.
Officials then accused the Al-Jazeera satellite network — which is owned by Qatar, a Brotherhood ally — of backing the Islamists against the state.
While Al-Jazeera’s Arabic-language channel openly supported the Brotherhood, the convicted journalists worked for the English-language network, a separate channel widely viewed as more objective.
Police detained the three journalists in December 2013, later broadcasting Fahmy and Greste’s arrests on Egyptian television.
On Saturday, Fahmy’s wife, Marwa, cried out as the judge read the guilty verdict in court.
“This is wrong!” she said, breaking down into tears.
Fahmy and Greste were both sentenced to three years in a maximum-security prison, while Mohammed was sentenced to an additional six months of hard labor because police found a bullet in his home at the time of his arrest.
Fahmy and Mohammed were taken into custody after the verdict Saturday.
Three Egyptian students accused of supporting the Brotherhood with propaganda and video footage were also sentenced to three years each in the verdict, while two other people were acquitted.
Al-Jazeera responded to the judge’s ruling by calling it a “dark day for Egypt’s judiciary.”
“There is no evidence proving that our colleagues in any way fabricated news or aided and abetted terrorist organizations,” Al-Jazeera Media Network’s acting director, Mostefa Souag, said in a statement Saturday.
“Baher, Peter and Mohammed have been sentenced despite the fact that not a shred of evidence was found to support the extraordinary and false charges against them.”
Clooney said she would meet with Egyptian officials to lobby for the deportation of Fahmy, who is a Canadian citizen. Egyptian law allows foreign nationals convicted of crimes in Egypt to be deported to their home countries.
Angered by Al-Jazeera’s handling of the case, Fahmy has filed a lawsuit in Canada seeking $100 million from the broadcaster, saying it put the story ahead of employee safety and used its Arabic-language channels to advocate for the Brotherhood. Al-Jazeera has said Fahmy should seek compensation from Egypt.