Outrage after Egypt sentences Al-Jazeera reporters to 3 years prison

Marco della Cava | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Egypt sentences Al-Jazeera reporters to prison time Three Al-Jazeera English journalists were sentenced to three years in prison by an Egyptian court. The judge said he sentenced the men, in part, for broadcasting "false news" during the 2013 military ousting of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

Human rights and free speech advocates expressed outrage Saturday at the news that three Al-Jazeera English journalists were sentenced to three years in Egyptian prison.

The reporters — Canadian national Mohammed Fahmy, Australian journalist Peter Greste and Egyptian producer Baher Mohammed — were found guilty of broadcasting "false news" as well as an array of transgressions ranging from not registering with the country's journalist syndicate to bringing in broadcast equipment with approval.

Immediately following judge Hassan Farid's ruling, Fahmy and Baher were taken into custody. Greste was deported back to Australia in February. The three were originally convicted in 2014 and after a 2013 raid on Al-Jazeera's offices in Cairo. A retrial was ordered after local officials said the first trial has proceeded with a lack of evidence.

"This trial has been carried out with no evidence and has caused great pain to (the men and their) families," Sherif Mansour of the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement. "We call on Egyptian authorities to put an end to the abuse of the law which has made Egypt one of the riskiest countries in the world to be a journalist."

The trial 'sends a dangerous message that there are judges in Egypt who will allow their courts to become instruments of political repression and propaganda.' - Amal Clooney, Mohammed Fahmy's attorney

Mansour noted that according to the organization's research, at least 22 journalists were behind bars for their reporting in Egypt as of Aug. 12. As was the case with the three Al-Jazeera reporters, most of the journalists jailed in Egypt are accused of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been banned by Egyptian authorities. Mansour added that Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi said late last year that he would consider pardoning the trio.

Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa direction, issued a statement saying the trial itself "makes a mockery of justice in Egypt. Today’s verdict must be overturned immediately. We consider them to be prisoners of conscience, jailed solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression.”

Amnesty International is also urging the Egyptian authorities to facilitate Fahmy’s request for deportation back to Canada.

Other outraged voices included that of Amal Clooney, a London-based human rights attorney, and wife of actor George Clooney. After the ruling was announced early Saturday European time, Clooney, who represented Fahmy, said "the verdict today sends a very dangerous message in Egypt ... that journalists can be locked up for simply doing their job, for telling the truth and reporting the news. And it sends a dangerous message that there are judges in Egypt who will allow their courts to become instruments of political repression and propaganda."

Greste, who was convicted in absentia, told Australia's ABC network that the prosecution presented "no evidence that we did anything wrong and so for us to be convicted as terrorists on no evidence at all is frankly outrageous. We have to keep fighting.”

Al-Jazeera's acting director-general Mostefa Souag also weighed in, saying the verdict "defies logic and common sense ... There is no evidence proving that our colleagues in any way fabricated news or aided and abetted terrorist organizations and at no point during the long drawn out retrial did any of the unfounded allegations stand up to scrutiny."

At original trial, prosecutors used news clips about an animal hospital with donkeys and horses, and another about Christian life in Egypt, as evidence they broke the law, according to the Associated Press. Defense lawyers — and even the judge — dismissed the videos as irrelevant.

Nonetheless, the three men were convicted on June 23, 2014, with Greste and Fahmy sentenced to seven years in prison and Mohammed to 10 years for being found with a spent bullet casing. On Saturday, Mohammed received an additional six months for being in possession of a "bullet," according to the full text of the court decision carried by the Egyptian state news agency MENA. It wasn't immediately clear why Saturday's verdict referred to a "bullet," rather than a spent bullet casing.

Back in May, Fahmy filed a lawsuit in Canada seeking $100 million from Al-Jazeera, saying that it put the story ahead of employee safety and used its Arabic-language channels to advocate for the Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Jazeera responded that Fahmy should look to Egypt for any compensation.