https://now.mmedia.me
Jan 31, 2014

Egypt's most dangerous profession
By Tom Rollins

Will international pressure free journalists behind bars in Egypt?

Ciro, Egypt – Jeremy Hodge was sitting at home when he heard a knock at the door.

The American translator lives in Cairo with his friend Hossam el-Meneai, a filmmaker from El-Arish in North Sinai. When the door opened, 12 State Security officers entered to wait for Meneai to come home, while Hodge and a friend made nervous small talk. Over three unpleasant hours later, both Hodge and Meneai were taken away.

The two men were interrogated for days while lawyers, embassy officials, and friends scrambled to find their whereabouts. "They're asking Hossam about Sinai and his camera," Hodge said in a text sent during the detention. "They're asking me how I know him, and where I learned my Arabic."

Today, Hodge is out. Meneai, however, is still being held and, according to Hodge, regularly beaten.

The story is an increasingly familiar one in Egypt, where journalists face growing animosity from both the authorities and members of the public.While the focus of international media condemnation has centered on the Al-Jazeera team that has been detained since December 29 (including Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Australian correspondent Peter Greste), other journalists also face routine harassment and intimidation. On January 25, several journalists were accused of working for the "terrorist" Al-Jazeera channel and attacked by angry mobs inside Tahrir Square. Then, on Wednesday, Egypt's general prosecution referred 20 Al-Jazeera journalists to court on terrorism charges. Four were foreigners; 16 were Egyptian.

Photojournalist Mohamed el-Shamy is the brother of Abdullah, an Al-Jazeera Arabic reporter who has been detained since the Rabaa al-Adawiya sit-in dispersal some six months ago. Shamy was himself arrested on Tuesday, the third time since June 30.

"I was outside my office directly across from the US embassy," says the Egyptian photojournalist, who works for Turkey's Anadolu news agency. "After the Cairo security directorate bomb [on January 24], they've been checking people's bags near the US embassy. So they checked my bag and found a gas mask and a camera."

"'Why have you got a camera?' they asked me."

"I said, 'This is my job.'"

 

The “Marriott Cell”

The 20 Al-Jazeera employees are facing charges of joining a terrorist organization, defaming Egypt, and supplying information useful to terrorists. A statement suggested that two Britons and a Dutch woman were among the wanted.

The so-called "Marriott Cell" is accused of running a terrorist network from the five-star Marriott Hotel in Cairo's posh Zamalek island enclave. Official investigations say journalists falsified footage to give the appearance "that the country is undergoing civil war," broadcasted "false news… false rumors [and] unreal images," and attempted to harm Egypt's "status" at home and abroad. Journalists are also accused of working without permits or accreditation. For some, the charges read more like Orwellian farce than a legal investigation.

"If people's lives and happiness weren't involved it would be hilarious," British-Egyptian journalist and blogger Sarah Carr commented on Facebook.

The charges also came as a surprise to International Press Institute (IPI) representatives Daoud Kuttab and Timothy Spence, who came to Cairo this week to push the Egyptian government to release journalists. The visit by the influential Vienna-based group is just one example of the growing international pressure being exerted on Egypt's government, though the wave of condemnations from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Amnesty International, and others appears to have done little to assuage authorities' displeasure.

During their visit, IPI delegates met Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy and State Information Service (SIS) chairman Salah Abdel Sadeq, and left "hopeful" that their concerns would be "taken seriously" by the authorities, Kuttab told NOW.

"The responses in both cases have been very positive," Spence said shortly after meetings ended. "There is agreement that the new constitution is a promising basis for journalism and press freedom." However, Spence acknowledged, there was still a long way to go.

"Egypt has had a very tumultuous three years… It's going to take time to change, attitudes, laws," he explained. "But that doesn't mean the people in charge cannot send a message that journalists who, we believe, are being held essentially as scapegoats should be released."

 

Ending the “charade”

After meetings with Fahmy, IPI delegates claimed the foreign ministry appeared responsive to complaints about media abuses. However, they said, Wednesday's charges did not reflect that.

"The tone we got at the foreign ministry was totally different to what we saw [on Wednesday]," Kuttab said over the phone after leaving Egypt. "This is totally outside the atmosphere we felt while we were there."

"Our goal was for the immediate release of these journalists, not another excuse to continue to hold them in detention," Spence added. But is it really a foregone conclusion? "Moving these cases to the courts at least gives the journalists and their lawyers the opportunity to argue before judges for their immediate and unconditional release. We now hope the judges quickly see the injustice in holding Egyptian and foreign journalists and the absurdity in the charges against them and put a final end to this charade."

The IPI subsequently issued a statement by Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie in reaction to Wednesday’s charges. The statement, which was released on Thursday, condemned the journalists’ treatment “in the strongest possible terms” and called the charges an “unwelcome surprise after the commitment to press freedom that Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy expressed to IPI during our meeting.”

The foreign ministry has meanwhile stressed that due process has to be respected. "It's completely for the judiciary to decide. If we're talking about building a democracy, we can't build a democracy without the separation of powers," claimed ministry spokesman Badr Abdel Aaty, adding that the assurances given to IPI delegates were not so clear-cut.

"We are telling [the prosecution] what we've been listening to… [and] we're doing our best." However, he added, a Maspero Radio and Television Union analysts' report had stated that Al-Jazeera English's team had demonstrably falsified footage to lie about events in Egypt. The journalists were set for release before that, Abdel Aaty claimed.

"We don't know what the evidence is," said Ahmed Ezzat of the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression. "We aren't sure that these journalists were detained because they're covering what's happening in Egypt or because they are from Al-Jazeera." Lawyers are still waiting to get access to prosecution files.

Kuttab believes the effects will be felt beyond the confines of a prison cell. "The environment is poisoned against journalists. My worry is not just about the individual journalists… This is going to have a chilling effect, and could lead to self-censorship," he told NOW.

For now, the 20 Al-Jazeera journalists and others being held in Egyptian jails will have to face the Egyptian judicial system. But some are not convinced that this is the end.

"This is what is happening in Egypt," said Shamy. "If you're not clapping all day and all night for the army, you can be jailed."

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