Convicted al-Jazeera journalist makes donation to Egyptian state fund

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/26/convicted-al-jazeera-journalist-donation-egypt

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The imprisoned al-Jazeera English journalist Mohamed Fahmy has donated more than £1,200 to the Egyptian state, in what his family says is an attempt to change local perceptions of his case.

Fahmy, a Canadian-Egyptian ex-CNN journalist, has given 15,000 Egyptian pounds (about £1,230) to a new fund established by the Egyptian government that solicits donations from citizens who want to help Egypt's ailing economy. Egypt's president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, has said he will donate half his wealth to the fund.

Adel Fahmy, Mohamed's younger brother, said: "We're trying to make his case resonate more locally. His patriotism in making this donation is separate from his anger at the verdict."

Local reaction to the conviction of Fahmy, Australian citizen Peter Greste and their Egyptian colleague Baher Mohamed on Monday has been more mixed than the international response, which has highlighted flaws in the prosecution case and heavily criticised the verdicts.

Many pro-government Egyptians believe that al-Jazeera, in particular its Arabic network, is biased towards supporters of the ousted former president Mohamed Morsi. Antipathy towards al-Jazeera has led to the portrayal of the jailed journalists as terrorists.

"None of them is a journalist, [none of them is] a journalist who is a member of the Egyptian journalists' syndicate, or a journalist who is working in Egyptian journalism," said Ibrahim Eissa, a prominent Egyptian talkshow host, who was jailed himself for dissent under the former dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Fahmy, Greste and Mohamed had their white prison uniforms swapped for blue on Thursday, reflecting the change in their status from accused to convicted. They have been transferred to a comparatively more comfortable prison known as The Farm.

Greste's brothers, who are in Egypt to support him, say they still have not decided on what actions to take following the conviction. Sisi has ruled out a pardon in the short term, leaving an appeal the only legal remaining option.

Fahmy has refused to appeal against his conviction, a decision his family are trying to persuade him to reverse.

In a message to the outside world conveyed through his brothers on Thursday, Greste repeated his denunciation of his conviction. "Throughout this trial, the prosecutor has consistently failed to present a single piece of concrete evidence to support the outrageous allegations against us," he said in a statement posted on Facebook.

"At the same time our lawyers have highlighted countless procedural errors, irregularities and abuses of due process that should have had the entire case thrown out of court many times over."

Since the verdicts, the space for dissent in Egypt has contracted further. The country's best-known contemporary novelist, Alaa al-Aswany, announced on social media that he was abandoning his weekly column in Egypt's leading private broadsheet because of the crackdown on dissent – a striking move given how Aswany was one of the crackdown's biggest cheerleaders at its inception.

"It is no longer acceptable to have a different opinion and to criticise," Aswany wrote. "It is no longer acceptable to say the truth – only to praise."

Aswany's move followed a five-year jail-term for an Egyptian journalist, Mohamed Hegazy, who was accused of inciting sectarian strife by reporting on sectarian attacks in central Egypt. Prosecutors later announced the trial of 23 activists – including several high-profile rights defenders – who were arrested last Saturday for protesting against a ban on protesters. They are among at least 16,000 political prisoners in Egypt.

According to a Guardian investigation, hundreds more have been disappeared.