Detained Jazeera journalist in Suez to appeal 3-year sentence

The lawyer of jailed Al Jazeera reporter Abdel Rahman Shahin said he would appeal the verdict, after Suez Misdemeanor Court sentenced the defendant to three years in a maximum security prison, the official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported on Thursday.

Shahin, who was arrested in April, was handed the sentence with a LE10,000 fine on charges of inciting violence on Tuesday. He was also charged with attacking police and military forces, participating in the vandalism of public and private properties, and inciting others to violence through bribery.

Security sources told MENA that Shahin was dismissed from Al-Azhar University prior to the January 25 Revolution, when he was allegedly involved in a case known as “Al-Azhar Militias,” in which Muslim Brotherhood tycoon Khairat al-Shater was the main defendant.

He joined a technology institute afterwards and worked for Misr 25 Channel, the mouthpiece of the Brotherhood that was taken off air following the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi. He also worked for the Freedom and Justice Newspaper, affiliated with the Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).

Al Jazeera said in a report that neither Shahin’s family nor his lawyer were notified of the court verdict against him. They only knew about it after the news was “leaked” to the media.

The ruling coincided with another against three Al Jazeera English reporters and seven others, who received prison sentences ranging from seven to ten years on accusations of joining and aiding a terrorist organization and spreading false news with the intention of harming Egypt’s image abroad.

Journalists Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, Peter Greste and Baher Mohamed were sentenced to seven years each, with the latter handed an extra three years for possessing pellet shots.

Another 11 fugitive defendants were sentenced to 10 years in absentia with the same accusations.

The rulings drew serious condemnation nationally and worldwide, with US Secretary of State John Kerry releasing a heavy-worded statement one day after his visit to Cairo, in which he described the sentences as “draconian.”

“As I shared with President Sisi during my visit to Cairo, the long-term success of Egypt and its people depends on the protection of universal human rights,” Kerry said.

The sentences also drew criticism from national and international human rights groups, who regarded the ruling as a flagrant indication of the deteriorating conditions regarding press freedoms in Egypt.

“The natural repercussion of this verdict for any independent media or journalist is that doing your job is dangerous,” said Mohamed Lotfy, executive director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, who has monitored the trial on behalf of Amnesty International.

“You could be put on trial and imprisoned for possessing footage of interviews you do, or for interviewing people the government doesn’t want to be interviewed,” Lotfy said. “Or even for covering events, like protests in the street, or if you show these videos in a light that the government doesn’t want.”