Journalists Syndicate react to reduction of verdict against former head and board members

New Journalists Syndicate head Abdel Mohsen Salama said that he “respects court rulings” following Saturday’s decision by an appeals court to reduce the verdict against his predecessor Yehia Qallash, former syndicate board member Khaled al-Balshy and current member Gamal Abdel Rehim to one-year suspended sentences.

Salama added that he had been hoping for an acquittal for the three, who received an initial two-year sentence in November and a LE10,000 fine each on charges of harboring fugitives in the Journalists Syndicate last May. None have served any jail time yet.

The syndicate’s board will meet tomorrow to discuss response to the verdict, following a request by several members.

Balshy, who lost his seat on the syndicate’s board in internal elections earlier this month, also commented on the verdict on Saturday, saying: “We will continue to defend press freedom and the independence of the syndicate. This is our mission and we will not abandon it.”

In May 2016 police stormed the syndicate and arrested journalists Amr Badr and Mahmoud Sakka, who were staging a sit-in after both their homes were raided, to execute arrest orders against them on the basis of press reports they published on Tiran and Sanafir. The sovereignty of the two islands was at that time about to be controversially handed from Egypt to Saudi Arabia.

The unprecedented violation of the press law, which protects the syndicate from raids, started a standoff between the state and the journalists which culminated in the sentencing of the syndicate’s leaders.

Balshy, a high-profile activist who has been targeted by prosecution investigators before, said the case is part of a larger battle for the dignity of journalists and the syndicate, adding that the syndicate’s Freedoms Committee had tallied 800 violations against journalists in the last two years. Balshy asserted that any retreat in the syndicate’s role to defend journalists would be considered a crime.

“Thank God that the verdict doesn’t entail imprisonment,” current syndicate head Salama told Mada Masr. “The previous verdict was like a sword held to our necks, now that it’s not there we can handle the case more calmly.”

Salama said that the syndicate will stand by its members in the case, which will now be viewed by the Cassation Court.

Journalists protested in front of the syndicate following the verdict on Saturday, chanting in support of those charged and demanding the release of all detained journalists, according to state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram.

Syndicate board member Mohamed Saad Abdel Hafiz told Mada Masr that the case is clearly politicized, especially since the case against those the board members are accused of illegally harboring has been closed.

Badr and Sakka were released following months of pretrial detention and their case remains idle.

“The verdict will be reflected on the state of freedoms in the country, there is a clear targeting of freedoms, and what’s happening is worse than the pre-2011 time. The ruling regime is monopolizing, not only journalism, but the whole public sphere.”

Amr Badr, one of the journalists that the syndicate is accused of harbouring who was recently elected to the syndicate’s board told Mada Masr:

“The verdict is a message of intimidation to journalists and the syndicate to keep them from playing their roles, and we reject this message,” he says.

In the latest syndicate elections, Salama beat Kalash for the head of the syndicate seat with a difference of around 600 votes, Balshy lost his seat by a small margin and Abdel Rehim remained on the board. Badr won a seat in the syndicate’s board for the first time.