2 Feb 2015 | Egypt, mobile, News and features
Peter Greste, Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Baher Mohamed are three Al Jazeera journalists were among those sentenced to prison on terrorism charges.
As journalist Peter Greste returns to Australia to a hero’s welcome home, his two colleagues Canadian-Egyptian journalist Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Egyptian journalist Baher Mohamed languish in an Egyptian prison.
The three Al Jazeera English journalists have spent more than 400 days in jail for no other crime than doing their work. In June 2014, Cairo court sentenced Greste and Fahmy to seven years in prison while Baher was handed down a ten-year sentence on the charges of “spreading false news and supporting a terrorist group.” Baher was given the harsher sentence for allegedly having in his possession an empty shell case that he had picked up at a protest site.
Analysts said that Greste’s abrupt deportation to his native Australia was the result of immense international pressure and a persistent international campaign for his release. The move followed the issuance of Presidential Decree No. 104 some months earlier, allowing foreign detainees to be deported for retrial in their own countries. The decree issued by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi in November 2014 came in response to widespread criticism of Egypt’s brutal security crackdown on dissent and the stifling of free expression in the country where four years earlier, opposition activists had taken to the streets to demand “Freedom, Bread and Social Justice.”
Former MP Mostafa Bakry had posted a message on his Twitter account on Saturday night (the day before Greste boarded a flight home via Cyprus) stating that the Australian journalist would be released the following day. On Sunday, Bakry followed up his earlier tweet with another message saying that journalist Mohamed Fahmy (Al Jazeera English Cairo Bureau Chief) would also be freed after having his Egyptian nationality revoked. Negad El Borei, Fahmy’s Defence Lawyer meanwhile, told the independent Al Masry El Youm newspaper that while it was necessary by law that Fahmy drop his Egyptian nationality if he wished to be deported to Canada, Fahmy had not decided to do that. A source close to the presidency also denied allegations that the jailed journalist had been granted amnesty, calling the rumour “baseless and unfounded.” Fahmy, has repeatedly denied in court that he has any links with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, insisting he was “a patriot” and “would never do anything to harm Egypt’s national security.
Meanwhile, in a letter addressed to President Abdel Fattah El Sisi on Sunday, Fahmy’s mother, Waffa Bassiouny, pleaded for her son’s release on grounds of ill health.
“As a mother and an Egyptian citizen, I appeal to you Mr. President to pardon my son,” she wrote, adding that “Fahmy is innocent and needs urgent medical treatment for Hepatitis C and a shoulder injury.”
Fahmy had suffered from a dislocated shoulder before his arrest and detention in December 2013 but the lack of treatment (despite his repeated pleas to the judge overseeing the case for medical care) has left him with a permanent disability in his right arm. El Sisi had earlier insisted that Egypt’s judiciary was “independent” adding that he could not influence judicial verdicts and would only be able to pardon the detainees once the legal process had been exhausted. On January 1, 2015, the court ordered a retrial for the three journalists but has not yet set a date for the new trial.
While Peter Greste’s deportation has raised hopes for the imminent release of Fahmy (who has dual citizenship), Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed’s sttuation is somewhat more precarious. His case has received far less media attention than his two high-profile colleagues simply because of the fact that he is solely Egyptian, a case that Rights Lawyer El Borei said “underlines the discrimination in Egyptian legislation against local detainees.”
Egyptian media which has aligned itself with the military-backed authorities since the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, has remained largely silent about the case of the three AJE journalists, (referred to by some media as the “Marriott-cell case”) save for denunciation by some media of Al Jazeera, accusing the Qatari-funded news network of complicity with the outlawed “terror group.” The network has been banned in Egypt since the overthrow of the Islamist President and had its offices ransacked by security forces several times before the imposition of the ban. Before their arrest and detention at the end of December, 2013, the three journalists had worked without valid credentials out of a makeshift studio in the Marriott Hotel in Zamalek.
In a telephone call on Monday (a day after Greste’s release), Jehan Rashed, Baher’s wife who gave birth to their third baby in August last year while her husband was locked up behind bars, decried the country’s discriminatory policies against native Egyptians.
“I know that the two ‘foreign’ journalists will walk free while Baher will be left to bear the brunt of this whole case. He is paying a heavy price for simply being an Egyptian,” she told Index.
She also complained that prominent TV talk show presenter Lamis El Hadidi had the night before referred to Greste and Fahmy by name on her show on the privately-owned satellite channel CBC but had said she was not sure if the third detainee was named Baher.
“This kind of attitude is typical of the discrimination in the country against one of their own,” she said, sounding distraught.
Egyptian journalist Khaled El Balshy meanwhile told Index that members of the Journalists Syndicate had called for an emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss possible measures to pile pressure on the authorities for the release of 11 journalists currently behind bars in Egypt, including both Baher and Mohamed Fahmy.
“We had previously signed a petition for their release which was presented to the authorities,” El Balshy told Index by telephone. “We feel that it is now time to send the government another reminder,” he added.
El Balshy did not rule out organizing a rally outside the Syndicate in the coming days to press for the release of the journalists whom he said “should be out doing their work instead of being locked up.”
Egypt was listed among the top ten worst jailers of journalists in the world in an annual report published last December by the New York-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists, CPJ. According to the CPJ report, Egypt had “more than doubled the number of journalists behind bars to at least 12 in 2014, including the three AJE journalists.”
While Egyptian citizens and the country’s pro-government media is paying little attention to Baher Mohamed, he is not forgotten by the international community and the foreign media. In reporting Greste’s release on Sunday, several foreign journalists working in Egypt reminded their audience that Greste’s two colleagues “must not be forgotten” and that “the campaign for their release is far from over.”
The plea was echoed by Greste’s family which vowed to continue its campaign until Fahmy and Baher were also released.
At a press conference in Brisbane on Sunday (held before Peter’s arrival home), Peter’s brother Andrew Greste said, “We want to acknowledge that Peter’s colleagues are still in jail.” His father Juris Greste also said that he “felt deeply for those left behind.”
“Peter will not rest until his colleagues are freed,” said Andrew.
22 Dec 2014 | Europe and Central Asia, Magazine, News and features, Politics and Society, United Kingdom, Volume 43.04 Winter 2014
2015 marks the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta. Index on Censorship magazine’s winter issue has a special report that examines all ways in which the document affected modern freedoms. Here John Crace kicks us off with a tongue-in-cheek trip through history
Call it a free for all. Call it an innate sense of fair play. Call it what you will, but the English had always had a way of making their feelings known to a monarch who got a bit above himself by hitting the country for too much money in taxes or losing overseas military campaigns or both. They rebelled. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t but it was the closest medieval England had to due process. Then came John, a king every bit as unloved – if not more so – as any of his predecessors; a ruler who had gone back on many of his promises and was doing his best to lose all England’s French possessions and all of a sudden the barons had a problem. There wasn’t any obvious candidate to replace him.
So instead of deposing him, they took him on by limiting his powers.
Kings never have much liked being told what to do and John was no exception. If he could have got out of cutting a deal with the barons he would have done. But even he understood that impoverishing the people he relied on to keep him in power hadn’t been the cleverest of moves, and so he reluctantly agreed to take part in the negotiations that led to the sealing of The articles of the Barons – later known as Magna Carta – at Runnymede on 15 June 1215. Which isn’t to say he didn’t kick and scream his way through them before agreeing to the 61 demands which were the bare minimum for his remaining in power. He did, though, keep his fingers cunningly crossed when the seal was being applied. As soon as the barons had left London, King John announced — with the Pope’s blessing — that he was having no more to do with it. The barons were outraged and went into open rebellion, though dysentery got to King John before they did and he died the following year. Don’t shit with the people, or the people shit with you. Or something like that.
With the original Magna Carta having lasted barely three months, there were some who reckoned they could have saved themselves a lot of time and effort by topping King John rather than negotiating with him. But wiser – or perhaps, more peaceful – counsel prevailed and its spirit has endured through various subsequent mutations – most notably the 1216 Charter, The Great Charter of 1225 and the Confirmation of Charters of 1297 and has widely come to be seen as the foundation stone of constitutional law, both in England and many countries around the world. It was the first time limitations had been formally placed on a monarch’s power and the rights of citizens to the due process of law and trial by jury had been affirmed. Well, not quite all citizens. When the various charters talked of the rights of Freemen, it didn’t mean everyone; far from it. Freemen just meant that small class of people, below the barons, who weren’t tied to land as serfs. The Brits have never liked to rush things. They like their revolutions to be orderly. The underclass would just have to wait.
Magna Carta and its derivative charters were never quite the symbols of enlightened noblesse oblige they are often held to be. The noblemen didn’t sit around earnestly thinking about how they could turn England into a communal paradise. What was the point of having fought and back-stabbed your way to the top only to give power away to the undeserving? The charters were matters of political expedience. The nobles needed the Freemen on their side in their face-off with the king and an extension of their rights was the bargaining chip to secure it. Benevolence never really entered the equation. Nor was Magna Carta ever really a legal constitutional framework. Even if King John hadn’t decided to ignore it within months, it would still have been virtually unenforceable as it had no statutory authority. It was more wish-list than law.
Ironically, though, it is Magna Carta’s weaknesses that have turned out to have guaranteed its survival. Over the centuries, Magna Carta has become the symbol of freedom rather than its guarantor as different generations have cherry-picked its clauses and interpreted them in their own way. While wars and poverty might have been the prime catalyst for the Peasant’s Revolt against King Richard II in 1381, it was Magna Carta to which the rebellion looked for its intellectual legitimacy. The Freemen were now seen to be free men; constitutional rights were no longer seen as residing in the few. The King and his court were outraged that the peasants had made such an elementary mistake as to mistake the implied capital F in Freemen for a small f and the leaders were executed for their illiteracy as much as their impudence.
Bit by bit, starting in 1829 with the section dealing with offences against a person, the clauses of Magna Carta were repealed such that by 1960 only three still survived. Some, such as those concerning “scutage” — a tax that allowed knights to buy out of military service — and fish weirs, had become outdated; others had already been superseded by later statutes. Two of those that remained related to the privileges of both the Church of England and the City of London — a telling insight into the priorities of the establishment. Those who still wonder, following the global financial collapse of 2008, why the bankers were allowed to get away with making up the rules to suit themselves need look no further than Magna Carta. The bankers had been used to getting away with it for the best of 800 years. You win some you lose some.
The survival of clause 39 of the original Magna Carta has been rather more significant for the rest of us. “No Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the Land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right.” Or in layman’s terms, due process: the legal requirement of the state to recognise and respect all the legal rights of the individual. The guarantee of justice, fairness and liberty that not only underpins – well, most of the time – the UK’s constitutional framework, but those of many other countries as well.
Britain has no written constitution. Not because parliament has been too lazy to get round to drawing one up, but because one is already assumed to be in the lifeblood of every one living in Britain. Queen Mary may have had “Calais” written on her heart, but the rest of us all have “Magna Carta” inscribed there. It can be found on the inside of the left ventricle, for those of you who are interested in detail. Other countries haven’t been so trusting in the genetic inheritance of feudal England and have insisted on getting their constitutions down in non-fugitive ink.
That Magna Carta has also been the lodestone for the constitutions of so many other countries, most notably the USA, is less a sign of the global reach of democratic principles – much as that might resonate with romantic ideals of justice — than of the spread of British people and British imperial power. After the Mayflower arrived in what became the USA from Plymouth in 1620, the first settlers’ only reference point for the establishment of civil society was Magna Carta. The settlers had a lot of other things on their minds in the early years — most notably their own survival and the share price of British American Tobacco — and they hadn’t got time to dream up their own bespoke constitution. If they had, they might have come up with something that abolished slavery and gave equal rights to black people sometime before the 1960s. So they settled for an off-thepeg version of Magna Carta, with various US amendments. And some poor spelling. In 1687 William Penn published the first version of Magna Carta to be printed in America. By the time the fifth amendment — part of the bill of rights – was ratified four years after the original US constitution in 1791, Magna Carta had been enshrined in American law with “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”
The fact that the American idea of Magna Carta was not one that would necessarily have been recognised in Britain was neither here nor there. For the Americans, the notion of the rights of a people to govern themselves was more than something that had been fought for over many centuries – a gradual taking back of power from an absolute ruler — that had been ratified on paper. They were fundamental rights that pre-existed any country and transcended national borders. And even if there was no one left alive on Earth, these rights would remain. They might as well have been handed down by God, though it’s probably just as well Adam hadn’t read the sections on the right to defend himself and bear arms. If he had shot the serpent, the whole history of the world might have been very different. As it is, when the Americans took on the British in the War of Independence, they weren’t fighting against a colonial overlord so much as for their basic rights to freedom.
The distinction is a subtle but important one. For though the more recent constitutions of former British colonies, such as Australia, India, Canada and New Zealand, more closely reflected the way Magna Carta was understood back in the mothership, those interpretations of it were still very much a product of their time. As a historical document, Magna Carta remains fixed in the 13th century: a practical solution to the problem of an iffy king. But as a concept it is a shifting, timeless expression of the democratic ideal. It can mean and explain anything. Up to and including that Britain always knows best.
Yet the appeal of Magna Carta endures and it remains the gold standard for democracy in any debate. Whatever side of it you happen to be on. British eurosceptics argue that the UK’s continuing membership of the European Union threatens the very parchment on which it was written; that Britain is being turned into a serf by a European despot. Pro Europeans argue that the EU does more than just enshrine the ideals of Magna Carta, it turns the most threatened elements of it into law.
Eight hundred years on, Magna Carta remains a moving target. Something to be aspired to but never truly attained. A highly combustible compound of idealism and pragmatism. Somehow, though, you can’t help feeling that King John and the feudal barons would have understood that. And approved.
This article is from the Winter 2014 issue of Index on Censorship magazine as 1215 and all that.
This article was originally posted on Dec 22, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
29 Oct 2014 | About Index, Bahrain Statements, Campaigns, Statements
The undersigned 40 organisations call on the international community to publicly condemn the ongoing crackdown on human rights defenders, who face harassment, imprisonment, and forced exile for peacefully exercising their internationally recognised rights to freedom of expression and assembly. With parliamentary elections in Bahrain scheduled for 22 November, the international community must impress upon the government of Bahrain the importance of releasing peaceful human rights defenders as a precursor for free and fair elections.
Attacks against human rights defenders and free expression by the Bahraini government have not only increased in frequency and severity, but have enjoyed public support from the ruling elite. On 3 September 2014, King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa said he will fight “wrongful use” of social media by legal means. He indicated that “there are those who attempt to exploit social media networks to publish negative thoughts, and to cause breakdown in society, under the pretext of freedom of expression or human rights.” Prior to that, the Prime Minister warned that social media users would be targeted.
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) documented 16 cases where individuals were imprisoned in 2014 for statements posted on social media platforms, particularly on Twitter and Instagram. In October alone, some of Bahrain’s most prominent human rights defenders, including Nabeel Rajab, Zainab Al-Khawaja and Ghada Jamsheer, face sentencing on criminal charges related to free expression that carry years-long imprisonment.
Nabeel Rajab, President of the BCHR, Director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), and Deputy Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), was arrested on 1 October 2014 and charged with insulting the Ministry of Interior and the Bahrain Defence Forces on Twitter. Rajab was arrested the day after he returned from an advocacy tour in Europe, where he spoke about human rights abuses in Bahrain at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, addressed the European Parliament in Brussels, and visited foreign ministries throughout Europe.
On 19 October, the Lower Criminal Court postponed ruling on Rajab’s case until 29 October and denied bail. Rajab’s family was banned from attending the proceedings. Under Article 216 of the Bahraini Penal Code, Rajab could face up to three years in prison. We believe that Rajab’s detention and criminal case are in reprisal for his international advocacy and that the Bahraini authorities are abusing the judicial system to silence Rajab. More than 100 civil society organisations have called for Rajab’s immediate and unconditional release, while the United Nations called his detention “chilling” and argued that it sends a “disturbing message.” The United States and Norway called for the government to drop the charges against Rajab, and France called on Bahrain to respect freedom of expression and facilitate free public debate.
Zainab Al-Khawaja, who is over eight months pregnant, remains in detention since 14 October on charges of insulting the King. These charges relate to two incidents, one in 2012 and another during a court appearance earlier this month, where she tore a photo of the King. On 21 October, the Court adjourned her case until 30 October and continued her detention.
Zainab Al-Khawaja is the daughter of prominent human rights defender Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, who is currently serving a life sentence in prison, following a grossly unfair trial, for calling for political reforms in Bahrain. Zainab Al-Khawaja has been subjected to continuous judicial harassment, imprisoned for most of last year and prosecuted on many occasions. Three additional trumped up charges were brought against her when she attempted to visit her father at Jaw Prison in August 2014 when he was on hunger strike. The charges are related to “entering a restricted area”, “not cooperating with police orders” and “verbal assault”.
Zainab’s sister, Maryam Al-Khawaja, was also targeted by the Bahraini government recently. The Co-Director of the GCHR is due in court on 5 November 2014 to face sentencing for allegedly “assaulting a police officer.” While the only sign that the police officer was assaulted is a scratched finger, Maryam Al-Khawaja suffered a torn shoulder muscle as a result of rough treatment at the hands of police. She spent more than two weeks in prison in September following her return to Bahrain to visit her ailing father. More than 150 civil society organisations and individuals called for Maryam Al-Khawaja’s release in September, as did UN Special Rapporteurs and Denmark.
Other human rights defenders recently jailed include feminist activist and women’s rights defender Ghada Jamsheer, detained since 15 September 2014 for comments she allegedly made on Twitter regarding corruption at Hamad University Hospital. Jamsheer faced the Lower Criminal Court on 22 October 2014 on charges of “insult and defamation over social media” in three cases and a verdict is scheduled on 29 October 2014.
While the government of Bahrain continues to publicly tout efforts towards reform, the facts on the ground speak to the contrary. Human rights defenders remain targets of government oppression, while freedom of expression and assembly are increasingly under attack. Without the immediate and unconditional release of political prisoners and human rights defenders, reform cannot become a reality in Bahrain.
We urge the international community, particularly Bahrain’s allies, to apply pressure on the government of Bahrain to end the judicial harassment of all human rights defenders. The government of Bahrain must immediately drop all charges against and ensure the release of human rights defenders and political prisoners, including Nabeel Rajab, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, Zainab Al-Khawaja, Ghada Jamsheer, Naji Fateel, Dr. Abduljalil Al-Singace, Nader Abdul Emam and all those detained for expressing their right to freedom of expression and assembly peacefully.
Signed,
Activist Organization for Development and Human Rights, Yemen
African Life Center
Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI)
Avocats Sans Frontières Network
Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR)
Bahrain Human Rights Observatory (BHRO)
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
Bahrain Salam for Human Rights
Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR)
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE)
CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
English PEN
European-Bahraini Organisation for Human Rights (EBOHR)
Freedom House
Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR)
Index on Censorship
International Centre for Supporting Rights and Freedom, Egypt
International Independent Commission for Human Rights, Palestine
International Awareness Youth Club, Egypt
Kuwait Institute for Human Rights
Kuwait Human Rights Society
Lawyer’s Rights Watch Canada (LWRC)
Maharat Foundation
Nidal Altaghyeer, Yemen
No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ – Italy)
Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty (NRPTT – Italy)
PEN International
Redress
Reporters Without Borders
Reprieve
Réseau des avocats algérien pour défendre les droits de l’homme, Algeria
Solidaritas Perempuan (SP-Women’s Solidarity for Human Rights), Indonesia
Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA)
Syrian Non-Violent Movement
The Voice of Women
Think Young Women
Women Living Under Muslim laws, UK
Youth for Humanity, Egypt
