Al Jazeera journalists jailed for doing their work

Al Jazeera journalists jailed for doing their work

  Egypt has effectively called to itself sanctions because it has knowingly undermined democracy by silencing the basic freedoms and rights of journalists. Pro democracy supporters will continue to stand with the Al Jazeera for that is the right thing to do although it may not be the easy thing.

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n Monday Al Jazeera journalists were jailed by an Egyptian court for doing their work. After six months of incarceration and religious court appearances, one expected that the journalists will be relieved and be freed at last.

  The Egyptian judge handed down chilling guilty verdicts which vary between seven and ten years. The Al Jazeera journalists tried in absentia were jailed for a decade while their colleagues who attended the court proceedings got seven whole years.

  Peter Gretse and Mohamed Fahmy will languish in Tora jail while the Al Jazeera producer Baher Mohamed will serve 10 years “for having been found with spent bullet cartridge by authorities in his apartment.”

  The Egyptian court had charged the Al Jazeera journalists with spreading false information about Egypt and supporting the banned terrorist group Muslim Brotherhood. Al Jazeera continued to deny all the charges labeled against its reporters and called for their immediate release. The evidence adduced in court did not justify these claims.

  Thanks to Al Jazeera reputation of fearless reporting and unbiased coverage, the network has received worldwide support from governments, NGOs, CSOs and individuals. The UN, US and UK all rallied for the release of the innocent journalists. The BBC also highlighted the plight of the jailed journalists as did other international media but the message was never home.

  The jailing of Jazeera journalists sets a bad precedent for world press. We know that Egypt is a country on transition. Does this transition really have to consume the journalists who did public interest mandate to highlight the problems bedeviling the Pariah, sorry, Pharaoh State?

  Egypt has secured itself a dubious distinction of an oppressor of freedom of expression and that of the press. The Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s refusal to intervene in pardoning the jailed journalists points to a worse political standoff between Doha and Cairo. 

  Egypt has effectively called to itself sanctions because it has knowingly undermined democracy by silencing the basic freedoms and rights of journalists. Pro democracy supporters will continue to stand with the Al Jazeera for that is the right thing to do although it may not be the easy thing.

   On Twitter the battle continues: #FreeAJStaff, #AJTrial #journalismisnotacrime. For the Al Jazeera English, keep up the high professional journalism that you exhibit every single day.