Journalists convicted in Egypt’s courts should have been deported, not jailed, says Sisi

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi believes that the journalists condemned in the controversial Al Jazeera trial should have been deported, not incarcerated, according to the state-owned news site EgyNews.

The president made remarks to that effect on Monday in a meeting with representatives from the Arab Journalists Union, EgyNews said. However, the president neglected to note that several of the journalists in question are in fact Egyptian citizens, and therefore could not have been deported.

In the meeting, media professionals reportedly exhorted the president to pardon all journalists currently imprisoned in Egypt. Journalists Syndicate head Diaa Rashwan pointed out that five journalists are currently incarcerated on charges that have nothing to do with their work.

However, Sisi emphasized that the judiciary is a completely independent body, and therefore he could not comment on the court’s rulings in such matters, EgyNews said. He added that legally, the president can only issue judicial pardons for convicted criminals when they have received final judicial verdicts and have exhausted all appeals, which is not applicable to the cases of the five jailed journalists.

In response, Rashwan expressed his wish for a presidential pardon to be issued after the courts handed down their final rulings in each case.

Three of the journalists in question were sentenced to jail on terrorism-related charges stemming from their work for the Qatar-based Al Jazeera English satellite channel, including Egyptian-Canadian Cairo bureau chief Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, Australian correspondent Peter Greste and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed. Earlier this year they were tried and convicted on charges of joining and aiding a terrorist organization, fabricating news and distributing false information to tarnish Egypt’s image abroad.

Fahmy and Greste were sentenced to seven years in prison, while Mohamed was sentenced to 10.

In addition, freelance journalists Ahmed Gamal Zyada and Mahmoud Abou Zeid have now been imprisoned for almost a year pending investigations into charges of committing violent acts. They were arrested while covering the dispersal of two protest camps in Rabea al-Adaweya and Nahda Square in August 2013, which claimed the lives of hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters.

Freedom of the press and freedom of expression were delivered a crippling blow in Egypt following the ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi. Since 2013, more than 10 journalists have been killed reporting in the field — all of them allegedly at the hands of security forces. A number of journalists have also been put on trial in military courts for presenting critical coverage of the Armed Forces’ campaign against militants in Sinai, or on charges of revealing military secrets.

Egypt was the ninth worst offender last year for jailing journalists in a list topped by Turkey, Iran and China, according to a study released by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in December.

“Following the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi on July 3, 2013, the military-supported government detained dozens of local and international journalists,” the report said, “particularly those viewed as critical of the government or sympathetic to Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. Most were freed.”