‘ Like being born again,’ Fahmy says of newly won freedom
Mohamed Fahmy is filled with ideas for his future as a free man.
Mere hours after being released from a Cairo prison, the Canadian journalist who spent nearly two years fighting widely decried terror charges is eager to discuss the next stage of his fight for freedom of the press in Egypt.
“It’s a whole new chapter; it’s like being born again,” he told The Canadian Press as the reality of his liberty began to sink in. “I just have so much inside me that I want to let out.”
When he was sent to prison for a second time in the same case last month, Fahmy began working on what he called a charter of rights for journalists in Egypt. Before he leaves Cairo for Canada in a few days, he wants to present his document to Egypt’s President AbdelFattah el- Sissi, who pardoned him.
“I want to build on what happened with this case and explain to him some of the issues that journalists face here on the ground,” he said.
Fahmy’s long- running legal saga has drawn attention from around the world ever since he and two colleagues were arrested in December 2013 while working for satellite news broadcaster Al Jazeera English.
The trio — who maintained their innocence throughout — were charged with offences that included supporting a banned organization and fabricating footage to undermine the country’s national security.
They were convicted in a trial that observers called a sham and sentenced to years in prison. An appeal brought about a second trial, although one of them, Australian Peter Greste, was suddenly released under a law that allows for the deportation of foreign nationals convicted of crimes.
Fahmy and his Egyptian colleague, Baher Mohamed, however, underwent a retrial, were granted bail over the course of it, and ended up back behind bars when a judge found them guilty yet again — an outcome that shocked observers.
Returning to prison was difficult, Fahmy admitted, but not quite as hard as the initial shock of being sentenced to seven years during his first trial.
“You realize that your body and your mind is not prepared for what’s to come, no matter what you do,” he said. “When I got sentenced for three years this time around, it really hurt and it was hard as well, but I sort of was more prepared mentally and physically in handling the prison. But it was tough, it was really tough.”
Like everything else in his case, Fahmy’s presidential pardon, which was granted Wednesday, came as yet another surprise.
He was in his cell, with the television on, when he heard his name and his colleague’s name announced on a list of presidential pardons.
“We were jumping and hugging,” he recalled. “It was surreal.”
Over the coming days he needs to ensure the travel ban he was under is lifted so he can leave Egypt for Canada. He plans to stop first in either Toronto, where he has many supporters, or in Montreal, where his parents live, before heading for Vancouver, where he and his wife will build a new life.