World leaders call on Egypt to free Al-Jazeera journalists

CAIRO—Egypt was under mounting pressure yesterday to pardon three Al-Jazeera journalists, including Australia’s award-winning Peter Greste, jailed in a ruling that sparked global outrage and fears of a growing media crackdown.

Greste and Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fadel Fahmy each got seven-year terms in a Cairo court, while Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed received two sentences of seven and three years.

Eleven defendants tried in absentia, including one Dutch journalist and two Britons, were handed 10-year jail terms, also on charges of aiding the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood and “spreading false news.”

Australia said it was “appalled” at the verdict and US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke of “a chilling and draconian sentence.”

The US led calls for Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to free the journalists.

“We call on the Egyptian government to pardon these individ- uals or commute their sentences so that they can be released immediately, and grant clemency for all politically motivated sentences,” said White House spokesperson Josh Earnest.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the case was clearly politically motivated and that she would petition Sisi to intervene.

“The new Egyptian government has an opportunity to prove to the world that it is on the path to democracy, that it does believe in freedom of speech and freedom of the press, which are the pillars of democracy,” she said.

Greste’s elderly parents, who had been hoping for an acquittal, said they were “shattered” by the decision but vowed to battle on for the sake of press freedom.

“This is a very dark time not only for our family, but for journalism generally,” his father Juris Greste told a press conference.

“There will always be people, governments, and institutions wanting to limit the speaking of one’s mind and telling the waywe see,” he said, repeating the catchcry of the defense campaign: “Journalism is not a crime.”

All the defendants had been accused of aiding the Brotherhood and tarnishing Egypt’s reputation after the army ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in July 2013.

Nine of the 20 defendants were on the staff of Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based pan-Arab news channel which has come in for strong criticism in Egypt over its coverage of a deadly crackdown on Morsi’s Brotherhood.

Cairo considers Al-Jazeera to be the voice of Qatar and accuses Doha—which has denounced the repression of the Islamist movement’s supporters which has left more than 1,400 people dead—of backing the Brotherhood.

In Doha, Al-Jazeera chief Mustafa Sawaq condemned the verdict, charging that evidence provided by the prosecution “was not enough to jail someone for a single day.”

Several countries announced plans to summon Egyptian ambassadors to protest what many called an unjust verdict.