Al-Jazeera anchor says TV network aids terrorists

Mohamed Fahmy is the last person one would expect to make the case against al-Jazeera.

In 2014, the former Cairo bureau chief for the Qatarfunded television network began a 438-day sentence in an Egyptian prison on terrorism charges and practicing unlicensed journalism. His incarceration made al-Jazeera a powerful symbol of resistance to Egypt's military dictatorship.

Today Fahmy is preparing a lawsuit against his former employers. And while he is still highly critical of the regime that imprisoned him, he also says the Egyptian government is correct in saying al-Jazeera is really a propaganda channel for Islamists and an arm of Qatari foreign policy.

"The more the network coordinates and takes directions from the government, the more it becomes a mouthpiece for Qatari intelligence," he told me in an interview Thursday. "There are many channels who are biased, but this is past bias. Now al-Jazeera is a voice for terrorists."

Fahmy's testimony is particularly important now. Al-Jazeera is at the center of a crisis ripping apart the Arab Gulf states. Earlier this month Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain imposed a political and diplomatic blockade on Qatar. As part of that blockade, al-Jazeera has been kicked out of those countries.

The treatment of al-Jazeera as an arm of the Qatari state as opposed to a news organization does not sit well with many in the West. This week a New York Times editorial accused Qatar's foes of "muzzling" a news outlet "that could lead citizens to question their rulers" in the Arab world.

In some ways it's understandable for English-speaking audiences to take this view. Al-Jazeera's English-language broadcasts certainly veer politically to the left. At times the channel has sucked up to police states. The channel embarrassed itself with such fluff as a recent sycophantic feature on female traffic cops in North Korea.

But al-Jazeera English has also broken some important stories. It worked with Human Rights Watch to uncover documents mapping out the links between Libyan intelligence under Moammar Gadhafi and the British and U.S. governments.

Al-Jazeera's Arabic broadcasts, however, have not met these same standards in recent years. To start, the network still airs a weekly talk show from Muslim Brotherhood theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He has used his platform to argue that Islamic law justifies terrorist attacks against Israelis and U.S. soldiers. U.S. military leaders, such as retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded forces in the initial campaign to stabilize Iraq, have said publicly that al-Jazeera reporters appeared to have advance knowledge of terrorist attacks. Fahmy told me that in his research he has learned that instructions were given to journalists not to refer to al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria, al-Nusra, as a terrorist organization.

He said Qatar's neighbors were justified in banning al-Jazeera. "Al-Jazeera has breached the true meaning of press freedom that I advocate and respect by sponsoring these voices of terror like Yusuf al Qaradawi," he said. "If al-Jazeera continues to do that, they are directly responsible for many of these lone wolves, many of these youth that are brain washed."

Fahmy didn't always have this opinion of his former employer. He began to change his views while serving time. It started in the "scorpion block" of Egypt's notorious Tora prison. During his stay, he came to know some of Egypt's most notorious Islamists.

"When I started meeting and interviewing members of the Muslim Brotherhood and their sympathizers, they specifically told me they had been filming protests and selling it to al-Jazeera and dealing fluidly with the network and production companies in Egypt associated with the network," he said.

One example of al-Jazeera's coordination with the Muslim Brotherhood revolves around Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins in the summer of 2013, following the military coup that unseated Mohammed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated president. As part of Fahmy's case against al-Jazeera, he took testimony from a former security guard for the network and the head of the board of trustees for Egyptian state television. Both testified that members of the Muslim Brotherhood seized the broadcast truck al-Jazeera used to air the sit-ins that summer. In other words, al-Jazeera allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to broadcast its own protests.

That incident happened in the weeks before Fahmy was hired to be the network's Cairo bureau chief. He says he was unaware of these ties to the Muslim Brotherhood until he began doing his own research and reporting from an Egyptian prison.

When Fahmy learned of these arrangements, he said, he became angry. It undermined his case before the Egyptian courts that he was unaffiliated with any political party or terrorist groups inside Egypt. "To me this is a big deal, this is not acceptable," he said. "It put me in danger because it's up to me to convince the judge that I was just doing journalism."

Fahmy was released from prison in 2015, but not because al-Jazeera's lawyers made a good case for him. Rather, it was the work of human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, who eventually got him safely out of the country to Canada.

Now Fahmy is turning his attention to al-Jazeera. He is pressing a court in British Columbia to hear his case in January against the network, from whom he is seeking $100 million in damages for breach of contract, misrepresentation and negligence.

Fahmy's case is one more piece of evidence that the al-Jazeera seen by Englishspeaking audiences is not the al-Jazeera seen throughout the Muslim world.