24 Jun 14 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
(Image: Al Jazeera English/YouTube)
In a heavy blow to press freedom in Egypt, three Al Jazeera English (AJE) journalists were convicted Monday on charges of spreading false news, aiding a terrorist organisation and endangering national security.
Australian award-winning journalist Peter Greste and Canadian-Egyptian national Mohamed Fahmy, AJE Cairo Bureau Chief, were handed down seven-year jail sentences each. A third AJE journalist, Baher Mohamed, was meanwhile, sentenced to ten years — three more than his colleagues, on an additional charge of possessing an empty bullet case. The three journalists have been in detention since December and have steadfastly denied the charges against them.
Ten defendants in the same case — including three foreign journalists — were sentenced to 10 years in absentia, while three others — including Anas El Beltagui, son of jailed Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed El Beltagui — were acquitted.
The rulings shocked and outraged journalists and rights activists around the world, fuelling concern about freedom of expression and the independence of the judiciary in Egypt, three years after the country witnessed a mass uprising that toppled the authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak, raising hopes of greater freedoms.The unexpectedly harsh verdicts also sent a chilling message to journalists working in Egypt that the government was adamant on pursuing its zero-tolerance approach to dissent and that journalists are not immune from the authorities’ policy of silencing critics at any cost.
Sherine Tadros, an Egyptian journalist and former AJE reporter denounced the verdict in a Twitter post shortly after it was pronounced, saying: “As a friend of the jailed journalists, I feel incredibly sad; as a journalist, I am scared and as an Egyptian, I’m ashamed.”
“The ruling sends a clear message to journalists to adhere to the official narrative or risk severe punishment,” an Egyptian broadcaster who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Index after the verdict.
Meanwhile, in an interview on Al Jazeera shortly after Monday’s court session, Amnesty International director Steve Crawshaw deplored what he called an “outrageous ruling”, adding that the verdict was another step in Egypt’s “campaign of terrorizing people and terrorizing the media”.
Since Islamist President Mohamed Morsi was deposed on 3 July, dozens of journalists have been detained in Egypt as part of a massive government crackdown on dissenters of all stripes: Muslim Brotherhood leaders and supporters, secular activists and journalists.The release this week of two journalists — including Abdulla El Shamy, a reporter for the Al Jazeera Arabic Channel who had been held in detention since mid August — had raised hopes that at least 14 other journalists still in detention, would also be acquitted. The judge’s decision to prolong the detention of the AJE journalists however, has raised questions about the new government’s commitment to democratic principles.
“Today’s verdict is deeply disappointing. The Egyptian people have over the past three years, expressed their wish for Egypt to be a democracy. Without freedom of the press there is no foundation for democracy,” Britain’s ambassador to Egypt, James Watt, told Reuters after the verdict.
In the past eleven months, journalists covering “anti-coup” protests staged by Muslim Brotherhood supporters have allegedly been deliberately targeted by security forces and pro-government mobs who accuse them of being “paid agents” and “spies”. Since the Islamist president’s ouster last July, five journalists have been shot dead and several others wounded by riot police while reporting on the clashes between protesters and security forces, prompting an outcry from rights groups. In a statement released in April, the Cairo-based Arab Network for Human Rights Information denounced the increased attacks on journalists and called on the Press Syndicate and media outlets to ensure their protection. The New York-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists which ranked Egypt among the three “most deadly” countries for journalists in a 2013 report, also called on the Egyptian government to investigate the assaults on journalists and hold the perpetrators of such crimes to account. The calls came in response to the death of Mayada Ashraf, a 22 year old reporter who worked for the privately-owned Al Dostour newspaper. She became Egypt’s latest journalist-fatality when she was shot in the head on 28 March while covering the dispersal of a Muslim Brotherhood protest in Cairo.
Several Egyptian journalists have in recent months, complained of intimidation. They said they had received threats from security agents or were subjected to smear campaigns aimed at tarnishing their reputation. In today’s repressive, deeply polarised climate in Egypt, many local journalists have decided to “play it safe” adopting the state narrative and persistently vilifying the Muslim Brotherhood while lionising the military and the new president.
Not surprisingly, there has been little sympathy for the jailed AJE journalists in the Egyptian press. Out of fear of being labelled “unpatriotic” by the public or suffering an even worse fate, most local journalists have either remained silent on the AJE case or taken a stand against the defendants, referring to them as part of a “Marriott Cell” and implying they were “traitors” who had been working to sabotage the country. Some of the guests interviewed by talk show hosts on state-influenced media channels recently, have echoed the prosecution’s argument that “channels like Al Jazeera brought down Iraq and were planning to do the same in Egypt”. In the wake of Monday’s court rulings, it is highly likely that the current trend of journalists practicing self-censorship will continue.
After Monday’s verdict, Egyptian State Television reported that Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry had forcefully rejected pressure from foreign governments to overturn the court decision. On a visit to Cairo the day before, US Secretary of State John Kerry had reportedly raised the issue of media freedom in talks with the country’s new President Abdel Fattah El Sisi. Kerry who had expressed concern about the jailing of journalists in Egypt, reacted to the verdict Monday by calling it “chilling and draconian”.
Meanwhile, rights activists also expressed alarm at the outcome of Monday’s court proceedings, calling the trial “political”.
“The charges against the journalists are politicised,” said Mohamed Lotfy, a rights activist who has worked as a researcher with Amnesty International. “The AJE journalists are pawns, caught in the middle of a political dispute between Qatar and Egypt.”
The Egyptian authorities are angry over Qatar’s continued support for the Muslim Brotherhood, delcared by Egypt a “terrorist organisation” last December. The Egyptian government has also accused the Qatari-funded Al Jazeera network of bias in favour of the outlawed group — an accusation that has been repeatedly denied by the network.
While most activists are “appalled” by Monday’s verdicts and have laid the blame on what they call a “highly politicised judiciary”, Sahar Aziz, an Associate Professor of Law, Texas A&M University, told Index she believes judges in Egypt are themselves “victims” of the country’s turbulent political transition.
“There is evidence that some judges are under indirect pressure from the executive branch to adjudicate these political cases in ways that legitimise the official narrative that the state is facing a threat to its national security,” she said, adding that “Over the past year, a group of judges reputed to be independent have been expelled from the judiciary through ‘voluntary retirement’ or in other settlements with the governing judiciary apparatus. This has sent a chilling message to other judges that the cost of truly independent adjudication is prohibitively high.”
But the government’s piling pressure on the judges meant little to family members of the jailed journalists who were stunned by the ruling.
“It is shocking. We were totally unprepared for this,” said Andrew Greste, Peter’s brother who had expected Peter to fly back to Australia with him where his elderly parents were eagerly awaiting their son’s return. “Obviously, it will take some time to rethink our plans and decide what we can do next,” he told journalists outside the courtroom.
Mohamed Fahmy’s fiancee Marwa, who attended the court session, broke down crying on hearing the verdict. The couple had been planning their wedding in April.
Wafaa Bassiouny, Fahmy’s mother, shouted out as she walked out of the courtroom, “What has my son done to deserve this? He was just doing his job. He is now unable to move his right arm, isn’t that enough?”
Fahmy has been denied adequate medical treatment by prison authorities for a shoulder injury sustained before his arrest and has now lost full use of his right arm
But all hope is not lost. It is still highly likely that through an appeals process, the sentence may be reduced, or the journalists may even be acquitted at a later date. Only by recognising justice and reversing its current course, can the new government in Egypt gain credibility in the eyes of the international community and win the backing and solidarity it badly needs.
This article was posted on 24 June, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
12 Jun 14 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Bahrain, Brazil, China, Draw the Line, Russia
Protests against increase in public transportation costs in Rio de Janeiro on 13 February (Image: Mauricio Fidalgo/Demotix)
The World Cup — arguably the biggest international event on the planet — is upon us once more. But in the past year, Brazilians have been using their rights to free expression to organise large-scale protests to show their dissatisfaction with hosting the tournament. Meanwhile, revelations of serious human rights violations and corruption related to 2022 host Qatar have emerged. This year, human rights are sharing the spotlight with the beautiful game and its stars.
This isn’t the first time politics and sports have mixed. Just think of the Formula 1 Grand Prix races hosted in Gulf kingdom Bahrain, where authorities have cracked down on pro-democracy protesters; or the 2008 Olympics organised by the Chinese communist regime, which employs two million people to help monitor web activity; or the 1978 World Cup held in then-military dictatorship Argentina. More recently, Vladimir Putin’s Russia hosted the Winter Olympics (and will host the 2018 World Cup) not long after implementing homophobic legislation targeting so-called “gay propaganda”, while Belarus, which has been ruled by dictator Alexander Lukashenko since 1994, organised the 2014 Ice Hockey World Championship. Azerbaijan, with its, according to the latest figures, 142 political prisoners, is playing host to the inaugural European Games in 2015.
That’s without even considering the many human rights abuses perpetrated by authorities in participating countries.
The question that often comes up when these huge, prestigious events roll around, is how do we respond to the countries that repress their citizen’s free expression? Should we boycott? Should we use the attention to raise our voice on human rights abuses? Should we engage or ignore? Get involved the discussion using the hashtag #IndexDrawtheLine and tell us — where do you draw the line?
This article was published on June 12, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
16 May 14 | Egypt, News and features
A chilling message sent by award-winning photojournalist Mosa’ab El Shamy via his Twitter account on Monday filled his 41,000 online followers with dread. Alerting them that his brother, reporter Abdullah El Shamy, had been “removed from his prison cell and taken to an unknown location”, Mosa’ab added that he was “still trying to find out more.”
Abdullah, who works as a journalist with the Arabic-language Al Jazeera (AJ) Misr Mubasher Channel, has been detained at Cairo’s Torah prison since August. He was arrested outside the Raba’a El Adaweya Mosque in Cairo’s eastern residential neighbourhood of Nasr City while filming the forced dispersal of a sit-in by supporters of toppled Islamist President Mohamed Morsi. At least 600 protesters were killed and thousands more were injured in a single day of violence when security forces stormed the pro-Morsi encampment on August 14 .
Mosa’ab’s Twitter post provoked an angry outcry from hundreds of internet activists who demanded that the Egyptian authorities “immediately disclose the whereabouts of the 26 year-old AJ detainee.” The fact that Abdullah has been on hunger strike since January 27–and had reportedly lost a third of his body weight–further fueled concerns over his disappearance and ailing health.
“If they can let a prisoner on hunger strike like Abdullah El Shamy just vanish in Egypt, what does Foreign Minister Fahmy’s talk of ‘due process’ really mean?” asked Jonathan Moremi, a journalist with the independent Egyptian paper Daily News Egypt.
On a recent visit to the United States, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy told US Secretary of State John Kerry that the country’s courts were “independent of the government.” He insisted that a “due process” was allowed in all court cases, leading to “fair decisions” by the judges. His statements came in response to criticism from US officials and international rights groups of an April court decision sentencing 683 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death for their role in protests last year against the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi. Kerry called the mass death sentences a “dangerous development.” Amnesty International, meanwhile, said “the Egyptian judiciary risked becoming a part of the authorities’ repressive machinery.”
In a blog titled “Where is Abdullah El Shamy?” posted on her website Wednesday, prominent Egyptian blogger Zeinobia said that blood samples taken by Abdullah’s family had shown he was “on the verge of kidney failure.” She also reminded readers that “journalism is not a crime.”
Abdullah is one of 17 journalists currently imprisoned in Egypt and one of four detainees working for the Al Jazeera news network , according to a recent report released by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists , CPJ. Sixty five journalists have been detained since the military takeover of the country in July 2013, the CPJ report adds. Analysts say Abdullah’s situation appears to be “more serious” than that of the other three AJ journalists who have been charged with “fabricating news that harms national security” and “aiding a terror group.” Abdullah has languished in prison for nine months (four months longer than his detained colleagues) and unlike them, he has not been charged thus far. Furthermore, he works for the Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr, a network that has been accused by the Egyptian government of being “a mouthpiece for the Muslim Brotherhood”, designated by Egypt as a terrorist organization last December. The three other AJ detainees work for Mubasher Misr’s sister channel, Al Jazeera English, generally perceived by Egyptians as being “more balanced” and “fair”.
In a letter smuggled out of his prison cell at the end of January, Abdullah described the dire conditions inside Torah prison, saying he was sharing a tiny cell with 16 inmates. Announcing his decision to go on hunger strike “to send a message to intimidated journalists practicing self-censorship” and “exhort them to overcome their fear,” Abdullah expressed a defiant spirit, telling the military junta that nothing would break his will or his dignity. In a video smuggled out of prison , he held the Egyptian authorities responsible should harm befall him. ” I have repeatedly asked for medical attention but to no avail,” he says in the video.
It took a nerve-wracking two days for Mosa’ab to find his “missing” brother. In a second message posted on Twitter on Wednesday, he informed his online friends and fans that Abdullah had been moved to solitary confinement in Tora’s high security “Scorpion Prison”. Abdullah was being punished “for refusing to end his hunger strike and for attracting international attention to his plight,” Mosa’ab said.
Heba Saleh, the Financial Times’ Cairo Correspondent, who visited the three AJE detainees on Wednesday, offered another explanation for Abdullah’s disappearance. She quoted prison authorities as saying that Abdullah was being punished “for a smuggled cell phone found in his possession.”
Meanwhile, the trial of the three Al Jazeera English journalists –Australian journalist Peter Greste, Cairo Bureau Chief Mohamed Fahmy and producer Baher Mohamed–took a turn for the worse on Thursday when Lawyer Farag Fathy– the Defence Attorney representing Greste–quit the case, accusing the international news network of jeopardizing his client’s case.
In a surprise move on Thursday, Fathy announced he was withdrawing from the case, adding that Al Jazeera was using the trial for “promotional purposes.” Fathy’s decision to step down came after the Qatari-hosted news network served a Notice of Dispute against Egypt for breaching a 1999 investment treaty with Qatar, Hayden Cooper , ABC’s Middle East Correspondent reported on Thursday. In an article published online by Australia’s ABC news network, Cooper said Al Jazeera was seeking US Dollars 150 million in compensation from Egypt for losses the media outlet had incurred as a result of the closure of its offices in Cairo, the jamming of its satellites broadcasting in Egypt and the mistreatment of its journalists.
Thursday’s court session made little headway as defence lawyers complained to the judge that the prosecution had asked them to pay an exaggerated fee of 1.2 million Egyptian Pounds to review “the evidence.” Adjourning the trial until May 22, the judge urged the prosecutors to allow the lawyers access to the video footage they claim contains “evidence” against the defendants. He also asked them to state in writing their “desired price” for making the footage accessible to the lawyers.
The new developments threaten to further prolong the case that has dragged on for four and a half months. Defence lawyers and analysts fear the recent turn of events may also threaten the final outcome of the case, resulting in an unfair verdict. The four detained AJ journalists, including Abdullah El Shamy, are caught up in the middle of the Egypt-Qatar political dispute, they say, adding that the case is clearly “political” and hence there is little hope that justice will prevail. Abdullah, who has completed 100 days on hunger strike, may not live long enough to hear the verdict.
This article was posted on May 16, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
09 May 14 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Bahrain, China, News and features, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom
Made in Britain? Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) called for the immediate suspension of the use of excessive, indiscriminate and systematic use of tear gas against civilian protesters and densely populated Shia neighbourhoods in Bahrain (Image: Iman Redha/Demotix)
The Arab Spring has not stopped Britain from helping crush free expression and freedom of assembly by selling crowd control gear to authoritarian states including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
Analysis of newly-published data on export licences approved by the UK government have revealed ministers backed over £4 million of tear gas, crowd control ammunition and CS hand grenade sales over the last two years to Saudi Arabia – one of the most repressive states in the world.
The British government also allowed crowd control ammunition to be sold to Malaysia and Oman, as well as tear gas to Hong Kong and Thailand.
It gave the green light to anti-riot and ballistic shields to four authoritarian regimes listed by the Economist Democratic Index: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Azerbaijan, as well as Saudi Arabia.
Its only refusal for an export licence in 2013 for equipment which could be used to suppress internal dissent was for an order of CS hand grenades and ‘tear gas/irritant ammunition’ to Turkey.
A lack of transparency across the secretive arms sector makes it difficult to establish which companies are providing the arms – or how the country in question intends to use them.
But the Geneva Convention forbids the military use of all gas weapons, meaning the UK government would have assumed the tear gas was for use against civilian protesters.
Brief explanatory notes included in the export licences data suggest all those mentioned above are primarily for use against domestic populations.
The notes typically state the licence is granted “for armed forces end use” or “for testing and evaluation by a government / military end user”.
The only exception is the note for a sizeable order of anti-protest equipment for Brazil, which makes clear the export licence is granted for “armed forces end users not involved in crowd control / public security”.
Further evidence has emerged that Britain’s leading arms firm, BAE, has signed a £360 million contract with an unnamed Middle Eastern country for the upgrade of armoured personnel carriers whose primary use is against protesters.
Industry insiders believe the improvements are being made in Saudi Arabia to a stockpile of the vehicles left in the country by the United States military.
BAE’s chairman Sir Roger Carr said contractual commitments prevented him from commenting at the defence giant’s annual general meeting in Farnborough yesterday.
He faced heckling and hissing from vocal critics in the audience who had infiltrated the two-hour question-and-answer session, but insisted BAE was “helping to preserve world peace” and that the company “are not undermining the broader international rules” of the arms trade.
Speaking afterwards, however, a member of BAE’s board suggested the “natural place for these decisions is with government” rather than the company.
“I’m not abrogating our moral responsibility,” he said, “but it’s right that the burden of these difficult decisions is on the government because, in the UK at least, this is an elected democracy.”
Britain’s parliament, at least, has proved reluctant to provide a critical voice on the UK’s arms trade.
Opponents had alleged Saudi Arabian troops which intervened to crush the Arab Spring in Bahrain had received British military training. A recent report from MPs accepted the Foreign Office’s rejection of British complicity, with ministers arguing none of the training had taken place “in a repressive way”.
The Commons’ foreign affairs committee did, however, call on the government to “adhere strictly to its existing policy to ensure that defence equipment sold by UK firms are not used for human rights abuses or internal repression”.
Its request for the government to provide further evidence that it is doing so in practice did not meet with a positive response.
Officials said the risk that export licence criteria might be broken is “factored into” the original decision to grant the licence.
The Foreign Office stated: “There are rigorous pre-licence checks and, for open licences, compliance audits at the exporters’ premises in the UK. We will continue to scrutinise carefully all arms sales to Saudi Arabia.”
Many believe the current export licence regime is not fit for purpose, however. In 2013 the UK approved military licences to a total of 31 authoritarian regimes including Russia, China, Qatar and Kuwait.
“BAE couldn’t sell the weapons they do to these countries without the support of the UK government,” Andrew Smith of the Campaign Against The Arms Trade said.
“The UK government can stop any of these exports at any time but is choosing not to because it’s putting arms company profits ahead of human rights.”
He suggested the government’s decision to exclude Bahrain from its list of ‘countries of concern’ on human rights was “politically motivated”.
And he warned arms sales went beyond small-scale arms and ammunition to include much bigger purchases like fighter jets.
“The reason the Saudis buy from Britain is not just because Britain is willing to sell arms,” Smith added, “but also because it comes with political support and the endorsement and silence of the British government.”
This article was posted on May 9, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
