15 years in prison for Al Jazeera journalist 'disgrace', says network

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"This sentence is not against me; it's against Al Jazeera Network, against press freedom and journalists in Egypt," Taha Hussein told Al Jazeera, adding that it was a "shameful" attack on press freedom.

Al Jazeera said in a statement: "The Network asserts that the Cairo Criminal Court's decision represents yet another disgrace for the legal and judiciary system in Egypt and that the decision has no legal foundation."

There are currently four Al Jazeera journalists detained in Egypt without charge, Hisham Abdel Aziz, Bahaa El-Din Ibrahim, Ahmed Al-Najdi and Rabie Al-Sheikh.

At the end of March, the Cairo Criminal Court renewed Abdel Aziz and Ibrahim's detention for an additional 45 days pending investigation.

Abdel Aziz has spent more than 1,000 days behind bars on remand, even though he has exceeded the maximum amount of pre-trial detention allowed by law.

Al-Sheikh was arrested in August last year after arriving in Cairo airport on a trip to see his family and accused of "spreading false news."

Egypt ranks 166th in the Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index and is the third worst jailer of journalists worldwide.

The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that there are at least 25 journalists detained in Egypt as a punitive measure against their work.

The Arab Observatory for Media Freedom says there are 70 reporters in Egypt's jails.

Al Jazeera has said the sentence against Taha Hussein is part of Egypt's "ongoing campaign launched by the Egyptian authorities against Al Jazeera and its journalists."

Following the 2013 coup in Egypt, Cairo began cracking down on media outlets with a particular focus on the Qatari-based Al Jazeera, which closed its offices in Egypt in June 2014.

Last weekend an Egyptian criminal court sentenced Aboul Fotouh to 15 years in prison, accusing him of "spreading false news" and "incitement against state institutions."

Aboul Fotouh was arrested in February 2018 after returning to Egypt from London where he criticised coup leader Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.

Source: Middle East Monitor under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0