Al Jazeera’s ‘third man’ awaits trial
As an Egyptian citizen, Baher Mohamed has been the odd man out in case
For Baher Mohamed’s three small children, time spent with their father means jail time.
“(His wife) Jehane takes the children into the prison when she visits Baher,” says Sue Turton, a colleague of the 32-year-old journalist.
“They’re so used to the long-winded routine of getting through the security checks they know exactly when to raise their arms to be searched.”
Mohamed is Al Jazeera’s “third man,” due to be retried in a Cairo court Thursday along with Canadian Al Jazeera colleague Mohamed Fahmy. Australian Peter Greste was freed and deported under a presidential law last week. On Tuesday, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to intervene in Fahmy’s case, “including by personally reaching out to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el- Sissi.” Mulcair pointed out that Greste’s release came when the Australian prime minister “publicly and personally intervened.”
Harper’s office says the prime minister has reached out to the president, but wouldn’t comment on the timing or the details of the overture.
As an Egyptian citizen — without cover from a foreign government — Mohamed has been the odd man out in a case widely condemned as a travesty of justice.
“There was no evidence whatsoever presented in the trial that substantiated the prosecutor’s case,” said his younger brother, Assem, who as a journalist was able to attend every trial session while other family members were barred from the proceedings.
Unlike the families of Greste and Fahmy, who gained access to the trial through the Australian and Canadian embassies, Mohamed’s wife, Jehane Rashed, was not allowed to at- tend. Nor was Mohamed eligible for deportation under a law allowing convicted foreigners to be sent to their home countries. Fears that he would be left behind prompted Rashed to publicly plead for a new nationality for her husband from any country that would take him.
At the time of his arrest in December 2013, Qatar, the network’s owner, was in a political standoff with Egypt after the overthrow of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi. Cairo was angered by Qatar’s sympathy for the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, with which Morsi was linked, and blamed Al Jazeera for conspiring with “terrorists.”
Although Egypt’s top appeal court issued a scathing denunciation of the original trial verdict, there is no assurance that the retrial will free Mo- hamed and Fahmy.
The Egyptian journalist appears to have been subjected to particularly harsh treatment in a country that does not hesitate to crack down on its own media.
While Fahmy and Greste received seven-year sentences, Mohamed’s was lengthened by three years for possession of a spent shell casing, a souvenir of a work trip to Libya.
Greste and Fahmy were seized from the Marriott hotel where the Al Jazeera team was working. But the circumstances of Mohamed’s arrest were far more trying.
Armed security forces raided his home at dawn, breaking down the doors of the apartment where he and his pregnant wife and two young children were sleeping.
The family awoke to the sound of gunfire when police shot their dog, according to Rashed. Police searched the house, seizing Mohamed’s laptop, camera and telephone. He was blindfolded and driven away. The family did not know his whereabouts until two days later when Rashed received a call from him.
A devoted family man, Mohamed felt doubly punished by the more than yearlong separation.
It has also taken a harsh toll on his wife and three children, Hazem, 4, Fairouz, 3, and baby Haroun, who was born in August 2014 while Mohamed was behind bars.
“The children get nightmares and wake up screaming in the middle of the night asking for their father,” Rashed said. She tells them their father is at work. “They ask me every day why he doesn’t come home.”
On prison visits, Rashed tells the children their father is filming inside the jail. “They sit on his lap and cling to his neck and don’t want to leave,” she says. “Hazem tells him to stop work and to come home,” she added. “It has taken a psychological toll on me as well. We are dealing with it day by day.”
In a letter from prison, Mohamed told his children, “I promise you I will always fight for liberty. I don’t want you to give up on this society . . . because I am sure that soon everything will change for the better.”