Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste has been released from an Egyptian prison after 400 days behind bars. Greste and two of his Al Jazeera colleagues, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, were convicted on terrorism charges in a case widely denounced as a sham. Greste flew to Cyprus on Sunday following his release, but Fahmy and Mohamed remain behind bars. “We are relieved by this great news,” says Delphine Halgand, U.S. director of Reporters Without Borders, of Greste’s freedom. “But we have to continue to work to assure the release of all journalists in Egypt who are detained on spurious charges.” Halgand also discusses the violence directed against journalists worldwide in the first month of 2015, including attacks on journalists in France and Iraq and the beheading by ISIS of Kenji Goto, a Japanese reporter kidnapped in Syria last year.
Delphine Halgand talking:
it’s really important, in fact, to understand this historic perspective. So, first you have to remember that all governments in place after the fall of Mubarak have tried to control the media and tried to control the information as much as possible. In a sense, we have seen a Morsification of the media, and now we are seeing a Sisification of the media. But it’s also important to have in mind that the media freedom really declined since the army seized power and since Sisi is in power. Dozens of journalists have been arrested these last two years. Six journalists have been killed even during a pro-Morsi demonstration. And now, right now, what we are seeing is that all media considered to be linked to the Muslim Brotherhood are persecuted. And Al Jazeera is one of the main targets of this witch hunt.
I just would like to highlight again that 2014 and the beginning of 2015 have been marked by an extreme level of violence targeting journalists, from Syria to France. And what we have seen is that the murders are more and more barbaric, but also we have seen the apparition of a barbaric propaganda, with carefully staged beheadings of Western journalists, but also public execution of local journalists, like in Iraq, and, again, a barbaric propaganda with the Charlie Hebdo attack.
And one other comment that I would like to make is that in these last two years we have seen an increase, an explosion, in the number of journalists kidnapped all around the world, especially, again, in Syria, Libya, but also Ukraine. And again, I want to highlight one point. Ten percent of the journalists kidnapped right now are Westerners, but 90 percent of the journalists kidnapped right now are locals. And again, we don’t have to forget that ISIS, by example, is kidnapping and is executing more local journalists than foreigners. And we have to keep that in mind to understand how, actually, the Islamic State is holding hostage journalists, is killing journalists, but at the end, their main target is really the information and all freedom to all of us, in Iraq, in Syria and all over the world, to be informed.
Mohamed Fahmy, who has criticized the Canadian government, saying they haven’t done enough to free him. Again, he is a Canadian Egyptian. Canada has refused to even directly call for his release, saying only they have deep concerns about his case. In a statement last month, Mohamed Fahmy said, quote, “I understand that the ability of the Canadian government to help me is limited by the rules of diplomacy. But I do believe that Prime Minister Harper could do more to obtain my release if he were to directly intervene in our case.”
— source democracynow.org
Delphine Halgand, U.S. director of Reporters Without Borders.