*Pic: Image fromTwitter, here
The unjust conviction of Peter Greste and other Al Jazeera journalists continues a long and often bloody vendetta against this truth telling media organisation — and not just by Egypt. Contributing editor-at-large Tess Lawrence reports.
PETER GRESTE, Mohamed Fahmy, Baher Mohamed, and Al Jazeera colleagues Sue Turton and Dominic Kane could just as easily have been sentenced to death on Monday.
In what laughingly passes for a judicial system, Egypt has shamed herself and squandered any remnant of self-respect and international standing.
It is really Qatar’s Al Jazeera (literally ‘The Island’) that the Egyptian Provisional Government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his cronies firmly have in their crosshairs.
Greste and the others are symbols of what the al-Sisi regime most fear and loathe; the world’s most powerful and influential news source, founded in the Middle East/Africa region — Al Jazeera English.
Moreover, the sentences, ranging from seven to 10 years, were a direct hit on press freedom and the role of the journalist as witness.
Around the world, more than 200 journalists are languishing in prisons, held hostage because of their profession.
Despite their trial being held in absentia, Turton (who has a roving commission) and British citizen Kane, an Arsenal supporter and senior producer, might find their reporting activities severely restricted and their movements tracked electronically.
Last week, Egypt was readmitted to the 54-state strong African Union after an 11 month suspension, imposed when Muslim Brotherhood supremo President Mohammed Morsi was ousted in the night of the generals coup headed by Morsi’s former supporter turned nemesis, al- Sisi, then head of Egypt’s armed forces.
The journalists could be vulnerable to arrest and extradition if Egypt requests it of AU members.
Egypt, it must be remembered, has long been the slaughterhouse and torture chamber for so-called ‘civilised’ countries — especially for the United States and especially under the Presidency of George W. Bush.
The West, including Australia, is adept at sub-contracting out its dirty work to offshore locations (ergo Manus Island) and Egypt has long regarded the lucrative retainers, bribes and kickbacks received for such ‘black ops’ in their prison laboratories, as ready ‘baksheesh’.
Read the full article, with full links, Independent Australia, here
