Treated like enemies: the crackdown on Egyptian journalists.

AuthorKouddous, Sharif Abdel

CAIRO -- Two years ago in December, Egyptian security forces raided the home of Baher Mohamed, a producer for Al Jazeera English, breaking down the doors of his apartment at dawn while he and his pregnant wife and two young children were sleeping. The family woke up to gunfire when police shot their dog. Mohamed was blindfolded and driven away. He would not return for more than a year.

Hours earlier, two of his colleagues, Peter Greste, an Australian correspondent for the channel, and Mohamed Fahmy, a dual Canadian-Egyptian citizen who was the acting Cairo bureau chief, were arrested at the Marriott hotel where they had been working.

In a climate of growing official repression of journalists in Egypt under President Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi, the three were accused of belonging to or aiding a terrorist organization and spreading false news that endangered national security. Mohamed and Fahmy spent the first month of their detention in the maximum security wing of Egypt's notorious Tora prison complex, known as "Akrab"--Arabic for scorpion. They were held in solitary confinement twenty-four hours a day in insect-infested cells with no bed, books, shower, or sunlight before being transferred to another, slightly better section of the jail.

Their trial, which human rights groups and the media denounced as comically flawed, was held in a converted lecture hall at the Police Institute within Tora's prison walls. Prosecution evidence included a song by musician Gotye, footage of trotting horses, and a press conference in Kenya.

Nevertheless, in June 2014, Judge Nagy Shehata returned a guilty verdict and sentenced the three journalists to seven years in prison. Mohamed received an extra three years for possession of a spent bullet casing, a souvenir from a work trip in Libya. Shehata added a trademark flourish, writing in his verdict that the journalists "were brought together by the Devil" to destabilize the country.

In a heart-wrenching moment after the ruling, Fahmy grabbed the mesh cage of the defendants dock and screamed for justice as courtroom guards hauled the three A1 Jazeera journalists away. A number of correspondents covering the trial--some of whom were friends of the three journalists--openly wept in court.

The three men successfully appealed their case and were granted a retrial that began this past February. Greste was deported a few days before the retrial began. Presiding Judge Hassan Farid released Mohamed and Fahmy on bail on the condition they report to their local police station every day.

The arrest and prosecution of these Al Jazeera journalists became one of the most highly publicized cases in the world, helping to shine a spotlight on a vicious and unprecedented assault on press freedom in Egypt over the past two years. Journalists here are increasingly subject to arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, street violence, intimidation, state censorship, and a raft of draconian laws that have made it one of the riskiest places on Earth to work as a reporter.

"We are living through the worst state for press freedom and freedom of expression in this current period," said Mohamed Lofty, executive director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms.

Lofty's group released a report in August that documented more than 650 violations against journalists in the first year of Sisi's presidency, the equivalent of two violations a day.

"They are doing what...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT