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Egypt’s President Pardons Journalists Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed Egypt Pardons Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, Al Jazeera Journalists
(about 9 hours later)
CAIRO — President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi issued a decree on Wednesday pardoning two imprisoned journalists from the Al Jazeera English news network as well as youth activists convicted of protesting, according to a presidential spokesman. CAIRO — President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi pardoned two imprisoned journalists from the Al Jazeera English news network on Wednesday, as well as dozens of other political prisoners, effectively voiding a raft of widely criticized convictions handed down by Egypt’s courts.
The spokesman, Alaa Youssef, said that the journalists, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, were among 100 people pardoned by Mr. Sisi on the occasion of the Eid al-Adha holiday. The pardoning of the journalists, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, and of prominent leftist activists arrested at protests, provided their families with a measure of relief and stanched a source of international criticism of Mr. Sisi’s government a day before he was scheduled to fly to New York for a United Nations General Assembly gathering.
The detainees are among thousands of people arrested by the authorities over the last two years as part of a crackdown on free speech and dissent. Mr. Sisi’s government had faced scrutiny in particular over the cases of the Al Jazeera journalists, members of Egypt’s international press corps who were arrested on charges that human rights advocates called ludicrous and who were convicted after trials that appeared free of any incriminating evidence. The pardons appeared to be part of a customary prisoner release on the eve of the Eid al-Adha holiday. In a statement, Mr. Sisi’s office said 100 people had been pardoned for humanitarian and health reasons, and “in line with the president’s initiative last December to release detained youth.”
Mr. Sisi had strongly suggested in the past that he regretted that the men had been brought to trial. Their pardons were announced a day before Mr. Sisi was scheduled to travel to New York for the United Nations General Assembly meeting. Mr. Sisi’s willingness to discard the convictions with the stroke of a pen raised new doubts about the ability of Egypt’s judiciary to fairly settle the cases of thousands of other people imprisoned on charges that human rights advocates say are political in nature. Since Mr. Sisi led the military takeover of the government more than two years ago, the authorities have systematically rounded up perceived opponents, including Islamists and secular-leaning activists, filling Egypt’s jails.
Relatives of the journalists did not immediately return calls seeking comment. Rawya Sadeq, whose daughter, Yara Sallam, was arrested in the vicinity of a protest in 2014 and was among those the president’s office said had been pardoned on Wednesday, said that the family had yet to receive notification from the prison about whether Ms. Sallam was being released. “While these pardons come as a great relief, it is ludicrous that some of these people were ever behind bars in the first place,” Amnesty International said in a statement after the decree.
“I won’t believe any of it till Yara is out and on the asphalt,” she said. Mr. Fahmy, Mr. Mohamed and a third Al Jazeera colleague, Peter Greste, were arrested in December 2013 in the room they had used as an office at the Marriott Hotel in Cairo, and charged with broadcasting false news. They were also accused of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement that Mr. Sisi shunted from power. Mr. Greste was deported in February.
Their prosecution drew international attention because two of them — Mr. Fahmy, a Canadian, and Mr. Greste, an Australian — had foreign citizenship. All three men had at one time or another worked for large international news agencies.
But prosecutors never presented any evidence that the journalists had belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood or that they had been engaged in anything other than fairly reporting the news. Rather, their arrests were seen as part of a wider crackdown on free speech and dissent by the military-backed government, as well as a consequence of Egypt’s feud with Qatar, the Persian Gulf state that owns Al Jazeera and has been the main international supporter of the Brotherhood.
The journalists were convicted in their first trial and received sentences of seven to 10 years in prison. In January, Egypt’s highest court ordered a retrial, in what appeared to be an acknowledgment of the many flaws of the first.
At the same time, Egyptian officials, including Mr. Sisi, were making it clear that they viewed the prosecution of the journalists as an annoying, unnecessary source of international scrutiny, raising hopes that a retrial might result in acquittal.
But in August, a judge sentenced Mr. Fahmy and Mr. Mohamed to three years in prison, repeating the charge that they had fabricated news reports. At the time of the sentencing, Mr. Greste had already been deported under a decree that allowed Mr. Sisi to expel foreign citizens convicted of crimes.
After his release on Wednesday, Mr. Fahmy said in a phone interview that he had spent a sleepless night before the pardons anticipating that Mr. Sisi might make some “strategic” gesture, like freeing prisoners, before heading to the United Nations. Over the 21 months since his arrest, similar hopes had been raised but repeatedly dashed. “I wasn’t sure we would be included,” he said. “I am so happy.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists said on Wednesday that at least 18 other journalists remained imprisoned in Egypt, including a freelance photographer, Mahmoud Abou Zeid, who has been held in pretrial detention since August 2013.
Others ordered released by Mr. Sisi on Wednesday included Omar Hazek, a poet who was arrested at a protest in Alexandria in 2013, and two political activists, Yara Sallam and Sanaa Seif, who were arrested in 2014 at a demonstration protesting a government law that banned protests.
The list of those pardoned did not include several other leftist activists arrested at protests, or prominent Islamist opponents of the government.
Even so, the pardons amounted to “a card in the hand of the government” as Mr. Sisi prepared to travel to the United Nations headquarters, according to Mohamed Lotfy, the executive director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms. “It’s a small gesture, but it provides the government with an argument: ‘We have gotten people out of jail. We are not as crazy as people want to portray us.’ ”
It also sent another message. “When people benefit from the government,” Mr. Lotfy said, “it is through a decision from the top.”