Pardon may not shield Fahmy from problems
On Wednesday Egyptian authorities bundled Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy into a truck from his jail cell and dumped him outside his old school in Cairo.
“They literally put us in a truck and took us to this location and left us on the street with no money, no mobile phones, still wearing our prison garb,” he told CBC News. “We were told that (we) can now go home . . . It was unbelievable.”
But as a jubilant Fahmy celebrated his abrupt presidential pardon and release from jail, with his wife Marwa Omara, police arrived on the scene, demanding to see a video that was shot of the couple, on the grounds that the school should not be filmed.
It was emblematic of what Fahmy — and thousands of others detained or suspected of opposing President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s regime — still face in a country in which violations of human rights are pervasive, internal factions are tussling for power and the Arab Spring revolution’s promise of democracy is badly broken.
Fahmy was pardoned after spending more than a year in jail on widely decried terrorism-related charges, and beginning a new three-year sentence after losing an appeal.
His pardon, along with 100 other prisoners including Al Jazeera colleague Baher Mohamed, came before the Muslim Eid, a traditional time of forgiveness. But it was also on the eve of el-Sissi’s planned Sept. 29 speech to the UN, and an Egyptian bid for a non-permanent seat in the prestigious Security Council.
“It’s an attempt to change the news story about Egypt, which is not looking good,” says University of Waterloo associate professor Bessma Momani. “Sissi knew he’d be coming to the UN and would be bombarded by protests. Al Jazeera got a lot of attention. This is a win-win for Sissi.”
Fahmy will take up a post at the University of British Columbia when he comes back to Canada. But first his name must be removed from a travel ban still in place after the presidential pardon. Ailing Canadian resident Khaled Al- Qazzaz is still barred from leaving Egypt months after being released from the same prison, where he was held without charge in draconian conditions.
Fahmy’s criminal record will be upheld, one of his lawyers, Khalid Abu Bakr, told the Star. The pardon does not mean Egypt considers him innocent and was only possible because he made no further appeal.
Even a presidential pardon may not shield Fahmy from further problems with Egypt’s murky justice and political system.
“We have the view that Sissi is in command of the state,” says Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations, author of The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square.
“He really is not. There are the judiciary, intelligence, military and police who agree on some things, but are manoeuvering and jockeying underneath that. Those journalists got caught up in (their) political struggles and Sissi wasn’t willing to take them on.”
The judicial system that convicted Fahmy, Mohammed and Australian colleague Peter Greste on negligible evidence also has conflicting agendas, says Sahar Aziz, an associate professor at Texas A&M University School of Law.
“There’s a divide in the judiciary on whether to support the executive branch’s crackdown on dissent,” she said. “The vast majority appointed to high-profile cases like Fahmy’s are in the faction that agrees. They are not so much coerced into harsh judgments (against dissidents) but actually believe they are what the defendants deserve.”
Although some of the judges sympathized with the revolution, she added, they changed their minds when the protesters’ demands for judicial reform — including more transparency in hiring, and an end to escalating salaries and fringe benefits for judges — became clear.
As a result, judges are pushing back much less against harsh laws and repression than they did under deposed president Hosni Mubarak. “It’s unprecedented in the last 30 years,” says Cook. “What’s happening under Sissi is a ringing endorsement of Mubarak.”
The travails of the Al Jazeera journalists are “part of a much wider crackdown that has proven catastrophic for the rule of law and human rights” in Egypt, says Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team of the London-based charity Reprieve.
“Scores of journalists, activists, juveniles and others have been arrest- ed and tortured . . . the court proceedings make a mockery of justice — defendants have been prevented from seeing or hearing what’s going on, and beaten for demanding a fair trial.”
When Fahmy arrives in Vancouver, a lineup of students is waiting to meet him, and discuss the challenges journalists face in repressive countries like Egypt, says Alfred Hermida, director of UBC’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Fahmy will be an adjunct journalism professor and fellow of the university’s Centre for Applied Ethics.
“He will bring a real sense of the role journalists are undertaking on behalf of the public,” said Hermida, a former BBC journalist expelled from Tunisia under its dictatorship. “This is not something you’re doing for yourself. It highlights the importance of a free press and the consequences you face for your work.” With files from Yassin Gaber in Cairo