Renewed detention for defendants in ‘Al Jazeera’ case

Cairo Criminal Court adjourned the hearing against 20 named defendants in what has become known as the "Al Jazeera" case until May 15, to allow defense lawyers more time to examine evidence, state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper reported on Saturday.

The court denied bail to those present, including Al Jazeera English's Cairo bureau chief Mohamed Fahmy, Australian ex-BBC journalist Peter Greste and local producer Baher Mohamed.

This is the seventh session in the ongoing mass hearing of 16 Egyptian defendants, who have been accused of being part of a terrorist organization, and four others, who have been accused of aiding such activities. Al Jazeera maintains that only nine of those accused are journalists with the network. Eight are currently being detained, with the remainder being tried in absentia.

In a separate hearing on Saturday, Al Jazeera correspondent Abdullah al-Shamy was detained for a further 45 days without formal charge. Shamy has been held since August 14 last year, the day of the bloody pro-Morsi sit-in dispersal. 

The hearings took place on World Press Freedom Day, causing even more local and international interest in the controversial case.

According to Al-Ahram, prosecutors said that Fahmy, who has reportedly been suffering from a shoulder injury sustained prior to his arrest, had been examined by a doctor and would undergo physiotherapy.

Before leaving the courtroom on Saturday, Fahmy reportedly said, “Just get me out of here and I won’t even cover the elections.”

Three of the accused in the case, including Shamy, are currently on hunger strike in protest over what they say are fabricated charges and appalling conditions. Addressing journalists from the cage, Shamy, who is on day 103 of his hunger strike, said he had lost 35kg and had not received any medical attention, adding that he and 15 others are being detained in a 12 meter-squared cell with no water for 12 hours a day.

As they left the cage, some of the accused shouted, “Happy World Press Freedom day,” before they were escorted back to their cells, according to the Twitter accounts of several journalists present in the courtroom. Greste, who has been detained for four months, described the hearing as a “huge injustice,” Al-Ahram reported.

During the previous court session, in what has become known as the “Marriott Cell” case (several of the defendants were arrested from this Cairo hotel in December), journalists present at the hearing were asked to leave, with only the families of the accused and their lawyers permitted to remain. 

The case comes amid heightened tensions between Cairo and Qatar over the Gulf nation’s support of deposed President Mohamed Morsi and the interim Egyptian government’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, but also amid a period of attacks on journalists in the field.

Six journalists and photographers have been killed since Morsi’s July ouster last year, with many others injured, arrested and detained.