First letter from Tora prison, Egypt

I am nervous as I write this. I am in my cold prison cell after my first official exercise session – four glorious hours in the grass yard behind our block and I don't want that right to be snatched away.

I've been locked in my cell 24 hours a day for the past 10 days, allowed out only for visits to the prosecutor for questioning, so the chance for a walk in the weak winter sunshine is precious.

So too are the books on history, Arabic and fiction that my neighbors have passed to me, and the pad and pen I now write with.

I want to cling to these tiny joys and avoid anything that might move the prison authorities to punitively withdraw them. I want to protect them almost as much as I want my freedom back.

That is why I have sought, until now, to fight my imprisonment quietly from within, to make the authorities understand that this is all a terrible mistake, that I've been caught in the middle of a political struggle that is not my own. But after 2 weeks in prison it is now clear that this is a dangerous decision. It validates an attack not just on me and my two colleagues but on freedom of speech across Egypt. All of a sudden, my books seem rather petty. I had been in Cairo only two weeks before interior ministry agents burst through the door of my hotel room, that of my colleague and producer Mohamed Fahmy, and into the home of al-Jazeera's second producer Baher Mohamed.

We had been doing exactly as any responsible, professional journalist would – recording and trying to make sense of the unfolding events with all the accuracy, fairness and balance that our imperfect trade demands.

Most of the time, it is not a difficult path to walk. But when the Egyptian government declared the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) to be "terrorist organization", it knocked the middle ground out of the discourse. When the other side, political or otherwise, is a "terrorist", there is no neutral way. As George W Bush loved to point out after 9/11, you are either with the government or with the terrorists. So, even talking to them becomes an act of treason, let alone broadcasting their news however benign.

The following day, the government fleshed out its definition of the term. Anyone caught handing out MB leaflets, or simply participating in protest marches against the government could be arrested and imprisoned for "spreading terrorist ideology".

The MB has lost much of the support and credibility once had when its political leader Mohamed Morsi became Egypt's first democratically elected president just over a year and a half ago. And many here hold it responsible for a growing wave of Islamist violence, but it remains the single largest and best organized social and political force in Egypt. What then for a journalist striving for "balance, fairness and accuracy?" How do you accurately and fairly report on Egypt's ongoing political struggle without talking to everyone involved?

I worried about his at the time with Mohamed Fahmy, but we decided that the choice was obvious – as obvious as the price we are now paying for making it.

The three of us have been accused of collaborating with a terrorist organization (MB), of hosting MB meetings in our hotel rooms, of using unlicensed equipments to deliberately broadcast false information to further their aims and defame and discredit the Egyptian state. The state has presented no evidence to support the allegations, and we have not been formally charged with any crime. But the prosecutor general has just extended our initial 15-day detention by another 15 days to give investigators more time to find something. He can do this indefinitely – one of my prison mates has been behind bars for 6 months without a single charge.

I am in Tora prison – a sprawling complex in the south of the city where the authorities routinely violate legally enshrined prisoners' rights, denying visits from lawyers, keeping cells locked for 20 hours a day (and 24 hours on public holidays) and so on. But even that is relatively benign compared to the conditions my colleagues are being held in.

Fahmy and Baher have been accused of being MB members, So they are being held in the far more draconian "Scorpion prison" built for convicted terrorists. Fahmy has been denied the hospital treatment he badly needs for a shoulder injury he sustained shortly before our arrest. Both men spend 24 hours a day in their mosquito-infested cells, sleeping on the floor with no books or writing materials to break the soul-destroying tedium. Remember we have not been formally charged, much less convicted of any crime. But this is not just about three al-Jazeera journalists. Our arrest and continued detention sends a clear and unequivocal message to all journalists covering Egypt, both foreign and local.

The state will not tolerate hearing from the MB or any other critical voices. The prisons are overflowing with anyone who opposes or challenges the government. Secular activists are sentenced to 3 years with hard labor for violating protest laws after declining an invitation to openly support the government; campaigners putting up "No" banners ahead of the constitutional referendum are summarily detained. Anyone, in short, who refuses to applaud the institution.

So our arrest is not a mistake, and as a journalist this IS my battle. I can no longer pretend it'll go away by keeping quiet and crossing my fingers. I have no particular fight with the Egyptian government, just as I have no interest in supporting the MB or any other group here. But as a journalist I am committed to defending a fundamental freedom of the press that no one in my profession can credibly work without. One that is deemed vital to the proper functioning of any open democracy, including Egypt's with its new constitution.

Of course we will continue to fight this from inside prison and through the judicial system here. But our freedom, and more importantly the freedom of the press here, will not come without loud sustained pressure from human rights and civil society groups, individuals and governments who understand that Egypt stability depends as much as on its ability to hold open honest conversations among its people and the world, as it does on its ability to crush violence.

We know it is already happening, and all of us are both moved and strengthened by the extraordinary support we have already had, but it needs to continue.

Second letter from Tora prison

Journalists are never supposed to become the story. Apart from the print reporter's byline or the broadcaster's sign-off, we are supposed to remain in the background as witnesses to or agents for the news; never as its subject.

That's why I find all the attention following our incarceration all very unsettling. This isn't to suggest I am ungrateful. All of us who were arrested in the interior ministry's sweep of al-Jazeera's staff on December 29 are hugely encouraged by and grateful for the overwhelming show of support from across the globe. From the letter signed by 46 of the region's most respected and influential foreign correspondent calling for our immediate release; to the petition from Australian colleagues; the letter-writing and online campaigns and family press conferences - all of it has been both humbling and empowering. We know we are not alone. But what is galling is that we are into our fourth week behind bars for what I consider to be some pretty mundane reporting.

I've produced work in the past that has involved lots of detailed investigation, considerable risk, and not a small amount of sweat, that I wished the authorities would have been even a little bit offended by. Yet too often it has slipped out with infuriatingly little response.

This assignment to Cairo had been relatively routine - an opportunity to get to know Egyptian politics a little better; but with only three weeks on the ground, hardly time to do anything other than tread water. So when a squad of plainclothes agents forced their way into my room, I was first genuinely confused and later even a little annoyed that it wasn't for some more significant slight.

This is not a trivial point. The fact that we were arrested for what seems to be a set of relatively uncontroversial stories tells us a lot about what counts as "normal" and what is dangerous in post revolutionary Egypt.

Of course the allegations we are facing suggest anything but normal journalistic endeavours. The state has accused three of us - myself, and producers Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed - of collaborating with the Muslim Brotherhood to use unlicensed equipment to broadcast information we knew to be false to defame and destabilize Egypt. Fahmy and Baher are further accused of being MB members. It's a rap sheet that would be comically absurd if it wasn't so deadly serious.

I'm keen to see what "evidence" the investigators have concocted to prove the allegations. But to date we have not been formally charged with any crime. We are merely in detention to give them time to assemble their case so the prosecutor can decide if it is strong enough to take to court. Under Egypt's judicial system, we won't get to see the file until charges are formally laid.

So, all we have is what we did - a routine body of reporting on the political drama unfolding around us, and what it might mean for Egypt.

The fact that this has put us behind bars is especially alarming given the historical moment Egypt now finds itself in.

The current interim government emerged after widespread street protests and pressure from the military pushed Egypt's first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi from power. In the eyes of Morsi's Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, it was a military coup; to the government's supporters it was a popular overthrow, with a little help from the military, of an administration that had broken its promises on moderation; created widespread discontent; cracked down on dissent, and was dragging Egypt towards a closed-minded theocracy.

To defend the revolution Egyptians have just passed a fiercely liberal constitution that, amongst other things, explicitly … freedom of the speech. Article 11 even expressly protects journalists from imprisonment for crimes committed through publishing or broadcast.

But what constitutes a breach of the law in this case seems to be relative where anything too far beyond the bounds of normally accepted limits becomes a threat. It isn't that we pushed those limits – after more than 20 years as a foreign correspondent, I know what is safe ground. And we didn't stray anywhere near that edge.

But the state here seems to see itself in an existential struggle that pits the forces of good, open, free society against the islamist "terrorists" still struggling to seize control.

In that environment, "normal" has shifted so far from the more widely accepted "middle" that our work suddenly appeared to be threatening.

We were not alone in our reporting, but our arrest has served as a chilling warning to others of where the middle is here.

In this "new normal", secular activists - including some of my prison neighbors - have been imprisoned at least three times - first for opposing the now fallen autocrat Hosni Mubarak; then for protesting at the excesses of the short-lived Muslim Brotherhood administration and now for what they say is draconian overreach by the current government. Campaigners putting up "no" posters for the recent constitutional referendum are also in prison, as is anyone caught taking part in Muslim Brotherhood organized protest (the Brotherhood is now deemed to be a "terrorist organization"). In this "new normal", an independant agency reckons some 21,000 had been arrested in the five months since Morsi's was ousted on June 30, while 2,665 people had been killed and almost 16,000 injured. And of course among the detained are journalists including ourselves, accused of supporting terrorism and undermining the state.

Let me be clear I have no desire to weaken Egypt nor in any way see it struggle. Nor do I have any interest in supporting any group, the Muslim Brotherhood or otherwise. But then our arrest doesn't seem to be about our work at all. It seems to be about staking out what the government here considers to be normal and acceptable. Anyone who applauds the state is seen as safe and deserving of liberty. Anything else is a threat that needs to be crushed.