{"id":125902,"date":"2014-06-24T14:13:51","date_gmt":"2014-06-24T14:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=125902"},"modified":"2014-06-24T14:13:51","modified_gmt":"2014-06-24T14:13:51","slug":"egypt-rebuffs-global-call-free-al-jazeera-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/media-news\/egypt-rebuffs-global-call-free-al-jazeera-journalists\/","title":{"rendered":"Egypt Rebuffs Global Call to Free Al Jazeera Journalists"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Tuesday speech, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi refuses clemency<\/strong><\/p>\n

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi announced Tuesday he will not grant clemency to\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/em>\u00a0journalists and other reporters and activists sentenced to prison, despite international calls for their release, including from Egypt’s U.S. backers.<\/p>\n

In a televised speech delivered Tuesday morning, al-Sisi stated, “There were a lot of discussions about a verdict [on Monday]. I spoke to the minister of justice and agreed that we will not interfere,”\u00a0according to<\/a>\u00a0the Egyptian state-run paper\u00a0Al Ahram<\/em>.<\/p>\n

An Egyptian judge on Monday handed seven to ten year prison terms to three\u00a0Al Jazeera English<\/em>\u00a0journalists\u2013Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy, and Baher Mohamed\u2013and a group of students accused of collaborating with them. Two\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/em>\u00a0journalists and a freelance reporter were also sentenced in absentia.<\/p>\n

The aggressive prosecution of the defendants, who were charged with spreading “false news” and cast as “terrorists” for allegedly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, is widely viewed as part of the Egyptian government’s crackdown on free press and political dissent across the country. The military-backed interim government, headed by al-Sisi, killed thousands of people, disappeared hundreds, and detained over 16,000\u2013including numerous journalists and political activists who played key roles in the 2011 overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak.<\/p>\n

Monday’s verdict, which came less than a month after al-Sisi was sworn in as Egypt’s president, sparked outrage and shock in the courtroom and uproar around the world, including condemnation from human rights organization, journalists, and governments.<\/p>\n

In a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0released Monday, the Committee to Protect Journalists slammed the verdict as “Egypt’s Shame,” declaring, “The trial was almost farcical, and among the evidence admitted were family vacation photos and footage of news reports from other networks on unrelated subjects.”<\/p>\n

“To have sentenced them defies logic, sense, and any semblance of justice,” declared\u00a0Al Jazeera English<\/em>\u00a0managing director Al Anstey in a\u00a0press statement<\/a>\u00a0issued Monday.<\/p>\n

Al-Sisi is refusing to pardon the incarcerated journalists despite a plea from the United States\u2013a key backer of the Egyptian government.<\/p>\n

The White House on Monday\u00a0condemned<\/a>\u00a0the verdicts in a statement that reads, “We call on the Egyptian government to pardon these individuals or commute their sentences so they can be released immediately, and grant clemency for all politically motivated sentences \u2014 starting with the other defendants in this trial.”<\/p>\n

The statement said nothing about whether the verdict will affect U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s pledge, issued this weekend, to redouble support and\u00a0renew military aid to the Egyptian government<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This work<\/a> is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Tuesday speech, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi refuses clemency Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi announced Tuesday he will not grant clemency to\u00a0Al Jazeera\u00a0journalists and other reporters and activists sentenced to prison, despite international calls for their release, including from Egypt’s U.S. backers. In a televised speech delivered Tuesday morning, al-Sisi stated, “There were a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-125902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news","7":"category-media-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}