Take Action: Call on Egypt to #FreeAJStaff

CALL ON EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES TO FREE AUSTRALIAN JOURNALIST PETER GRESTE
AND HIS AL-JAZEERA COLLEAGUES, MOHAMED FADEL FAHMY AND BAHER MOHAMAD

LETTER

MELBOURNE
Hon. Consul General His Excellency 
Mr Khaled Mohamed Youssri RIZK 
Consulate General of the Arab Republic of Egypt
Level 6, 50 Market Street
Melbourne, Victoria 3000
Ph: (03) 9614 0710
E: info@egypt.org.au

CANBERRA
Hon. Ambassador His Excellency
Dr. Hassan Hanafy Mahmoud EL-LAITHY 
1 Darwin Avenue, Yarralumla
ACT, Australia 2600
Ph: (02) 6273 4437
E: embassy.canberra@mfa.gov.eg

Your Excellency,

I call for the immediate and unconditional release of journalists Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed. I also call on you to quash the convictions of the three men and any other defendants based solely on their peaceful exercise of the rights to freedoms of expression.

Finally, I urge Egypt to respect, protect and uphold the right to freedom of expression. Journalism is not a crime. 

Yours Sincerely,



LATEST: #FREEAJSTAFF

Jailed journalist Peter Greste writes about annus horribilis (via SMH)

  Grim news: Australian Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste hears the verdict from inside the defendents' cage.  Via: Sydney Morning Herald.
Grim news: Australian Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste hears the verdict from inside the defendents’ cage. Via: Sydney Morning Herald.

Article via: Sydney Morning Herald

“As jailed journalist Peter Greste describes it, 2014 was his annus horribilus.

But in a New Year message the Al Jazeera correspondent wrote to NSW MP Shaoquette Moselmane, he said although it had been a tough year, he and his colleagues had found “extraordinary support from unexpected quarters” and wanted to thank the NSW Parliament for passing a motion expressing support for the freedom of the press, human rights and the rule of law.

“This experience has, of course, been extraordinarily difficult for the three of us Al Jazeera journalists and our families, but we also understand that our case has come to stand for so much more than our freedom alone,” he wrote from his cell in Mazraa Prison.

Greste was jailed for seven years in June when an Egyptian court found he and his Al Jazeera colleagues guilty of spreading false news to support the Muslim Brotherhood.

Advertisement

Greste was writing to Mr Moselmane after learning that Egypt’s Court of Cassation (equivalent to the Australian High Court) had ordered a retrial.

“This is a significant step towards the vindication that we seek, and that we know must come if a credible judicial system is involved,” Greste said in the letter.

“Although we will probably never be able to draw a direct line between the actions of our supporters and the authorities’ handling of our case here, I’m convinced that steps like your motion send a very clear message that the world is paying attention.”

Mr Moselmane told Fairfax Media the Australian government needed to step up its representations to Egypt about bringing Greste back home.

Greste’s family have formally applied for the Al Jazeera journalist’s deportation under new Egyptian laws brought in late last year that grant the president the power to deport foreign defendants convicted or accused of crimes.

Lawyer Rick Mitry, speaking on behalf of the family, said nothing seemed to have moved in recent weeks and it appeared that Greste would face a retrial rather than being deported.”

China: Two writers and publishers released

 Xu Xiao, left, with the writer Zheng Shiping,  who uses the pen name Yefu, at a lecture in September 2012. PEN welcomes the release of Xu Xiao but remains deeply concerned for the well-being of four other writers.  Credit:  ChinaFotoPress.

 

Xu Xiao, left, with the writer Zheng Shiping,  who uses the pen name Yefu, at a lecture in September 2012. PEN welcomes the release of Xu Xiao but remains deeply concerned for the well-being of four other writers.  Credit:  ChinaFotoPress.

PEN International welcomes news of the release in late December 2014 of prominent Beijing-based writer, editor, and publisher, Xu Xiao, and publisher Liu Jianshu. PEN remains deeply concerned for the well-being of four other writers, journalists, publishers and civil society activists – Xue YeHe ZhengjunKuo Yanding and ZHANG Miao – who remain detained, apparently for their public support of pro-democracy protests which began in September 2014 in Hong Kong.

TAKE ACTION

Send appeals to Chinese Embassies:

  • Welcoming the release of Xu Xiao, and Liu Jianshu;
  • Expressing serious concern for the arrest and well-being of Xue YeHe ZhengjunKuo Yanding and ZHANG Miao;
  • Calling for their immediate and unconditional release if, as is feared, they is being persecuted for their legitimate professional activities and peaceful exercise of their right to free expression;
  • Expressing concern at the renewed crackdown on government critics in recent months, and reminding the Chinese authorities that Article 35 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China provides for freedom of speech and that as a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which provides for freedom of legitimate expression, the right not to be arbitrarily detained and the right to a fair trial, they are obliged to “refrain from acts that would defeat or undermine the treaty’s objective and purpose”.

Send appeals to:

His Excellency Xi Jinping
President of the People’s Republic of China
State Council
Beijing 100032
P.R. China
Fax: +86 10 6238 1025

We recommend that you also copy your appeal to the Chinese embassy in your country asking them to forward it and welcoming any comments they may have.

See this useful link to find the contact details of the Chinese embassy in your country Chinese embassies abroad

**Please contact the PEN WiPC office in London if sending appeals after 12 February 2015** Please keep us informed of any action you take in regard to these cases, including any responses you receive from the authorities.

Background

The first four cases named in bold below were arrested on 26 November 2014. Xu Xiao and Liu Jianshu were released in late December 2014.

Xu Xiao is a prominent Beijing-based writer, editor, and publisher. In October, Xu Xiao, chief editor of “New Century” publications, was reported to have been included in a list of writers whose works were banned by China’s General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP).  She is also a volunteer lecturer with Liren College, a non-governmental educational institution which runs private schools and libraries and was developed from Liren China Rural Library, shut down by the authorities in 2012. The executive director of Liren College, Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC) honorary member Chen Kun, was also reportedly arrested on 6 October on charges of creating disturbances for publically supporting the protests in Hong Kong. Liren College was established under the umbrella of the China Rural Library (CRL), which over the last few years has had several library branches shut down by Chinese authorities.

Xue Ye and Liu Jianshu are independent publishers and bookstore owners also affiliated with Liren College, held on suspicion of “illegal business practices”, possibly relating to alleged illegal publications or the selling of illegally published books. Xue Ye is executive director in charge of libraries for Liren College and the former president of CRL; Liu Jianshu, who returned to the country after studying at Harvard and Oxford in 2011, since then had been the former deputy general-director of CRL and managing Liren libraries. Liu Jianshu was released on bail on 24 December 2014.

He Zhengjun is the administrative director of the Transition Institute, a renowned civil society independent think tank which has now been shut down by the Beijing authorities. Writers Guo Yushan and Huang Kaiping, the Transition Institute’s founder and ex-director, respectively, were arrested in October on charges of creating disturbances for publically supporting the protests in Hong Kong. The charge of creating disorder is commonly used to silence dissent. The Transition Institute, founded in 2007, has carried out investigations in the fields of fiscal reform, local elections, legal reforms, business regulations, citizen participation and education rights. Both of Guo and Huang are ICPC honorary members.

In addition to the writers above, writer, poet, independent documentary film-maker and scriptwriter, NGO activist and ICPC honorary member Kuo Yanding has been held since 10 October 2014 on charges of creating disturbances for publically supporting the protests in Hong Kong. Also detained is Ms. ZHANG Miao, Beijing-based arts reporter for the German weekly Die ZeitShe was arrested on 2 October 2014 after reporting on the protests in Hong Kong for Die Zeit, and attending a poetry reading by artists in Songzhuang, eastern Beijing, to support the protests in Hong Kong. She was held incommunicado until 12 December 2014, when she was allowed to meet her lawyer, who confirmed that she is charged with ‘creating disturbances’. Her lawyer reported that she is in reasonable health, although she was reportedly assaulted by police during her arrest. She was initially sent to the Beijing No.1 Detention Center of Beijing, before being moved a few days later to a hotel, possibly due to concerns about her arrest raised by the international media and the German government. She was held there for over a month until she was formally arrested on 6 November 2014 by the Tongzhou Branch of Beijing Public Security Bureau. She is now being held in the Tongzhou Detention Center, Beijing.

via our friends at PEN International

China: Writers and Publishers arrested in a New Wave of Repression

PEN International and the International Publishers Association are deeply concerned at a new wave of arrests of writers, journalists, publishers and civil society activists in China in recent weeks, apparently for their public support of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. According to reports, four prominent intellectuals – Xu Xiao, Xue Ye, Liu Jianshu and He Zhengjun were arrested on 26 November 2014 alone. Two others – Kuo Yanding and ZHANG Miao – were arrested in October.

TAKE ACTION! Share on Facebook, Twitter and other social media

Send appeals to Chinese Embassies:

  • Expressing serious concern for the arrest and well-being of Xu XiaoXue Ye and Liu Jianshu He Zhengjun, Kuo Yanding and ZHANG Miao;
  • Calling for their immediate and unconditional release if, as is feared, they is being persecuted for their legitimate professional activities and peaceful exercise of their right to free expression;
  • Protesting the renewed crackdown on government critics in recent months, and reminding the Chinese authorities that Article 35 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China provides for freedom of speech and that as a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which provides for freedom of legitimate expression, the right not to be arbitrarily detained and the right to a fair trial, they are obliged to “refrain from acts that would defeat or undermine the treaty’s objective and purpose”.
 He Zhengjun, director of the Transition Institute and prominent writer Xu Xiao were both detained on Nov 26, along with Xue Ye and Liu Jianshu, a sign of growing suppression against government critics. Courtesy: PEN International.
He Zhengjun, director of the Transition Institute and prominent writer Xu Xiao were both detained on Nov 26, along with Xue Ye and Liu Jianshu, a sign of growing suppression against government critics. Courtesy: PEN International.

TAKE ACTION

CONTACT:

Hon. Ambassador Mr Ma Zhaoxu
Address: 15 Coronation Drive, Yarralumla, ACT 2600
Tel: 0061-2-6228 3999 
Fax: 0061-2-6228 3990
E-mail: chinaemb_au@mfa.gov.cn

You can also send appeals to:

His Excellency Xi Jinping
President of the People’s Republic of China
State Council
Beijing 100032
P.R. China
Fax: +86 10 6238 1025

Donate

CASE BACKGROUND

The first four cases named in bold below were arrested on 26 November 2014.

Xu Xiao is a prominent Beijing-based writer, editor, and publisher. She is being held in Beijing’s No.1 Detention Center on suspicion of “endangering national security.” In October, Xu Xiao, chief editor of “New Century” publications, was reported to have been included in a list of writers whose works were banned by China’s General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP).  She is also a volunteer lecturer with Liren College, a non-governmental educational institution which runs private schools and libraries and was developed from Liren China Rural Library, shut down by the authorities in 2012. The executive director of Liren College, Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC) honorary member Chen Kun, was also reportedly arrested on 6 October on charges of creating disturbances for publically supporting the protests in Hong Kong. Liren College was established under the umbrella of the China Rural Library (CRL), which over the last few years has had several library branches shut down by Chinese authorities.

Xue Ye and Liu Jianshu are independent publishers and bookstore owners also affiliated with Liren College, who are currently held on suspicion of “illegal business practices”, possibly relating to alleged illegal publications or the selling of illegally published books. Xue Ye is executive director in charge of libraries for Liren College and the former president of CRL; Liu Jianshu, who returned to the country after studying at Harvard and Oxford in 2011, since then had been the former deputy general-director of CRL and managing Liren libraries.

He Zhengjun is the administrative director of the Transition Institute, a renowned civil society independent think tank which has now been shut down by the Beijing authorities. Writers Guo Yushan and Huang Kaiping, the Transition Institute’s founder and ex-director, respectively, were arrested in October on charges of creating disturbances for publically supporting the protests in Hong Kong. The charge of creating disorder is commonly used to silence dissent. The Transition Institute, founded in 2007, has carried out investigations in the fields of fiscal reform, local elections, legal reforms, business regulations, citizen participation and education rights. Both of Guo and Huang are ICPC honorary members.

In addition to the four above, writer, poet, independent documentary film-maker and scriptwriter, NGO activist and ICPC honorary member Kuo Yanding has been held since 10 October 2014 on charges of creating disturbances for publically supporting the protests in Hong Kong. Also detained is Ms. ZHANG Miao, Beijing-based arts reporter for the German weekly Die ZeitShe was arrested on 2 October 2014 after reporting on the protests in Hong Kong for Die Zeit, and attending a poetry reading by artists in Songzhuang, eastern Beijing, to support the protests in Hong Kong. She was held incommunicado until 12 December 2014, when she was allowed to meet her lawyer, who confirmed that she is charged with ‘creating disturbances’. Her lawyer reported that she is in reasonable health, although she was reportedly assaulted by police during her arrest. She was initially sent to the Beijing No.1 Detention Center of Beijing, before being moved a few days later to a hotel, possibly due to concerns about her arrest raised by the international media and the German government. She was held there for over a month until she was formally arrested on 6 November 2014 by the Tongzhou Branch of Beijing Public Security Bureau. She is now being held in the Tongzhou Detention Center, Beijing.

China: PEN renews calls for release of poet Liu Xiaobo and wife Liu Xia

 PEN is calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Liu Xiaobo and wife, Liu Xia.
PEN is calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Liu Xiaobo and wife, Liu Xia.

8 December 2014 marks the sixth anniversary of the arrest of Chinese poet and human rights defender Liu Xiaobo, who is serving an 11-year prison sentence for his dissident writings and peaceful activism. Liu Xiaobo was imprisoned for “inciting subversion of state power” for his part as the leading author behind “Charter ‘08”, a manifesto calling for protection of universal human rights and democratic reform in China.

In October 2010, Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his continued and non-violent struggle for human rights in China. In prison and unable to attend the award ceremony in Oslo, he was represented by an empty chair – a tradition long established in PEN International meetings to highlight cases of persecuted writers.

His wife, poet and artist Liu Xia, was placed under house arrest following the Nobel announcement in October 2010 and continues to be held without charge or legal due process. Her home is guarded by security officers and she is prevented from communicating freely with the outside world.

PEN believes that the ongoing, extra-judicial house arrest of Liu Xia is intended as punishment for the human rights work carried out by her husband, Liu Xiaobo, and is extremely concerned for her physical and psychological well-being.

PEN calls on the Chinese authorities to release Liu Xiaobo immediately and unconditionally and lift all restrictions placed on Liu Xia.

TAKE ACTION

PEN Centres are urged to write appeals during the month of December to express solidarity with Liu Xiaobo and his wife Liu Xia, and all writers currently detained in the P.R.China.

Appeals to Chinese authorities:

  • Send appeals calling for the immediate and unconditional release of poet and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, and all those detained in China in violation of Article 35 of its own constitution;
  • Reminding the Chinese authorities that as a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which provides for freedom of legitimate expression, the right not to be arbitrarily detained and the right to a fair trial, they are obliged to “refrain from acts that would defeat or undermine the treaty’s objective and purpose”;
  • Expressing concern at the extra-judicial house arrest of Liu Xia which is harming her physical and psychological integrity and calling for all restrictions on her freedom of movement to be lifted.

Send appeals to:

His Excellency Xi Jinping
President of the People’s Republic of China
State Council
Beijing 100032
P.R. China
Fax: +86 10 6238 1025

Hon. Ambassador Mr.  Ma Zhaoxu
Chinese Ambassador to Australia

Address: 15 Coronation Drive, Yarralumla, ACT 2600
Tel: 0061-2-6228 3999 
Fax: 0061-2-6228 3990
E-mail: chinaemb_au@mfa.gov.cn

Press and Publicity

  • Write articles for publication in the press to celebrate Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia and to highlight the situation for freedom of expression in China.

Solidarity

  • Elect a Chinese writer as an Honorary Member of your Centre and by doing so provide long term support and advocacy for him/her and their family. For details of the International PEN Honorary Membership scheme, read the PEN WiPC Guide to Defending Writers Under Attack  (Part V, pp 15-20). Please let us know if you do so and we will ensure that your Centre is networked with others working on the case.

LIU XIAOBO: Case background

Liu Xiaobo was arrested on 8 December 2008 and held under ‘residential surveillance’, a form of pre-trial detention, at an undisclosed location in Beijing until he was formally charged on 23 June 2009 with ‘spreading rumours and defaming the government, aimed at subversion of the state and overthrowing the socialism system in recent years’. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison on 25 December 2009. The verdict offered as evidence seven phrases that he penned from 2005 until his detention—all either quotations from his many essays or from Charter 08, which Liu had helped draft.  In mid-November 2013 his lawyer began legal proceedings to apply for a re-trial.

Liu Xiaobo first received support from PEN International in 1989, when he was one of a group of writers and intellectuals given the label the “Black Hands of Beijing” by the government and arrested for their part in the Tiananmen Square protests. Prior to his current arrest, Liu has spent a total of five years in prison, including a three-year sentence passed in 1996, and has suffered frequent short arrests, harassment and censorship.

LIU XIA: Case background

Liu Xia is a poet, artist, and founding member of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre. She has been held in her Beijing apartment without access to phones, Internet, doctors of her choice, or visitors since Liu Xiaobo was named the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2010. In recent weeks, there has been increased concern regarding the mental and physical health of Liu Xia, who is reportedly suffering from depression and a heart condition.

On 3 December 2013, Hong-Kong based activist Zeng Jinyan posted on her blog three requests made to the Chinese government by Liu Xia. Zeng Jinyan has not disclosed how she received the information. These requests were as follows: (1) “I request the right to consult a doctor freely;” (2) “I request that Liu Xiaobo and I are allowed the right to read the correspondence we write to each other;” (3) “I request the right to work and receive an income.”

According to Zeng Jinyan, Liu Xia is not willing to see a police-appointed doctor for fear of being interned in a psychiatric hospital, a punishment sometimes used by the Chinese authorities to silence human rights defenders. Regarding her second request, Liu Xia and Liu Xiaobo have not been permitted to read the letters they send to each other.

In January 2014 Liu Xia was rushed to hospital in Beijing after suffering myocardial ischemia (lack of blood flow to the heart). She returned for further tests on 8 February 2014 but was discharged the following day and is said to be in need of specialist medical care. Her phone line was reconnected after her initial hospitalisation to enable her to call for help in case of emergency.

PEN International believes that the ongoing, extra-judicial house arrest of Liu Xia is a form of punishment for the human rights work carried out by her husband, Liu Xiaobo, and is extremely concerned for her physical and psychological integrity.

Via our friends at PEN International

8 December 2014 marks the sixth anniversary of the arrest of Chinese poet and human rights defender Liu Xiaobo, who is serving an 11-year prison sentence for his dissident writings and peaceful activism. Liu Xiaobo was imprisoned for “inciting subversion of state power” for his part as the leading author behind “Charter ‘08”, a manifesto calling for protection of universal human rights and democratic reform in China.

In October 2010, Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his continued and non-violent struggle for human rights in China. In prison and unable to attend the award ceremony in Oslo, he was represented by an empty chair – a tradition long established in PEN International meetings to highlight cases of persecuted writers.

His wife, poet and artist Liu Xia, was placed under house arrest following the Nobel announcement in October 2010 and continues to be held without charge or legal due process. Her home is guarded by security officers and she is prevented from communicating freely with the outside world.

PEN believes that the ongoing, extra-judicial house arrest of Liu Xia is intended as punishment for the human rights work carried out by her husband, Liu Xiaobo, and is extremely concerned for her physical and psychological well-being.

PEN calls on the Chinese authorities to release Liu Xiaobo immediately and unconditionally and lift all restrictions placed on Liu Xia.

abandon the imagined martyrs
I long to lie at your feet, besides
being tied to death this is
my one duty
when the heart’s mirror-
clear, an enduring happiness

— Extract from Longing to Escape by Liu Xiaobo.

Iran: Blogger Hossein Derakhshan released

 Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan. Courtesy: PEN International.
Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan. Courtesy: PEN International.

Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, known as the ‘Blogfather’, was released from Evin prison on 19 November 2014 after being pardoned by the Supreme Leader. He had been held since 1 November 2008, and was originally sentenced to 19 and a half years in prison, later reduced to 17 years on appeal, after conviction of several national security, obscenity and religious insult charges in connection with his online activism. There is no information regarding the remaining ban on his five-year ban on journalistic activities that he was due to serve at the end of his imprisonment sentence.  PEN International welcomes Derakhshan’s release, and continues to call for any remaining restrictions on him to be lifted. PEN also continues to call for the immediate and unconditional release of all other writers currently detained in Iran in connection with their peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression and assembly, in accordance with Articles 9, 19 and 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a state party.

TAKE ACTION: Share on FaceBook, Twitter and other social media

Please send appeals:

  • Welcoming the release of Hossein Derakhshan;
  • Seeking clarification as to whether he remains subject to a ban on practising as a journalist and calling for any such ban to be lifted;
  • Calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all other writers and bloggers currently detained in Iran solely in connection with their peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression and assembly, in accordance with Articles 9, 19 and 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a state party.

Appeals to:

Leader of the Islamic Republic
Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei
The Office of the Supreme Leader
Islamic Republic Street — End of Shahid
Keshvar Doust Street,
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: info_leader@leader.ir
Twitter: @khamenei_ir

Head of the Judiciary
Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani
c/o Public Relations Office
Number 4, 2 Azizi Street intersection
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Hassan Rouhani
Pasteur Street, Pasteur Square
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: media@rouhani.ir
Twitter: @HassanRouhani (English) and @Rouhani_ir (Persian)

Please copy appeals to the diplomatic representative for Iran in your country if possible.

***Please send appeals immediately. Check with PEN International if sending appeals after 31 December 2014. ***

Please inform us of any action you take, and of any responses you receive.

Background

Hossein Derakhshan is a prominent blogger, known as the ‘Blogfather’, who pioneered blogging in Iran with his Internet diaries, and for creating a protocol with instructions on how to participate in blogs in Farsi language. He was arrested from his family home in Tehran on 1 November 2008 shortly after returning to Iran from several years living in Canada and the United Kingdom. Initial reports suggested that he was accused of ‘spying for Israel’, apparently for a highly publicised trip he made to Israel – with whom Iran has no diplomatic relations – in 2006, travelling on a Canadian passport. In September 2010, Derakhshan was sentenced to 19 and a half years in prison for ‘insulting the Holy Sanctities’, ‘conspiring with hostile governments’, ‘spreading propaganda against the Islamic system’, ‘spreading propaganda in favour of counter-revolutionary groups’, and ‘creating and managing obscene websites’. A five-year ban on political and journalistic activities was also imposed, to be served after his release from prison. His sentence was later reduced to 17 years’ imprisonment, but the five-year ban remained.

According to media reports, the blogger was pardoned on his return to prison after a two-week temporary release, on 19 November 2014.

For the previous RAN alert on Hossein Derakhshan’s case, click here.
 

via our friends at PEN International

Press Freedom vs Political Power

 PEN Melbourne Committee members Regina Hill and Cece Ojany. Courtesy: Wheeler Centre.
PEN Melbourne Committee members Regina Hill and Cece Ojany. Courtesy: Wheeler Centre.

PEN Melbourne, the Wheeler Centre and the nonfictionLab at RMIT University host a panel of journalists, advocates and academics to discuss the implications of the Peter Greste and Alan Morison cases – and what we should do about them.

Hear from Mark Baker (Chief Executive Officer of the Melbourne Press Club), Cece Ojany (Writers-In-Prison Officer with PEN Melbourne) and Alexandra Wake (Lecturer in Journalism at RMIT University). Moderated by Regina Hill.


Peter Greste and Alan Morison are both Australian journalists who, with their colleagues, are subject to judicial action that challenges not only their own freedom but the fundamental principle of freedom of the press itself.


  Award-winning Australian foreign correspondent Peter Greste was   found guilty in June 2014 by an Egyptian court of spreading false news and supporting the blacklisted Muslim brotherhood.
Award-winning Australian foreign correspondent Peter Greste was  found guilty in June 2014 by an Egyptian court of spreading false news and supporting the blacklisted Muslim brotherhood.
  Australian journalist Alan Morison and colleague Chutima Sidasathian are facing lengthy jail-terms in Thailand for reprinting part of a controversial but award winning article on the country's people-smuggling trade.
Australian journalist Alan Morison and colleague Chutima Sidasathian are facing lengthy jail-terms in Thailand for reprinting part of a controversial but award winning article on the country’s people-smuggling trade.

Our world is becoming more and more subject to political propaganda and spin; influenced by short media cycles and social media. A free and critical media is arguably more important now than ever. What do the Peter Greste and Alan Morison cases tell us about the state of our media, the value that we place on freedom of the press – and the role that we each have in defending those fundamental rights?

Click here to watch a video of the event (external site).


MORE ON PETER GRESTE
#FREEAJSTAFF

PEN Melbourne – Free Al Jazeera staff detained in Egypt #FreeAJStaff

PEN Melbourne is appalled by the terrible news that Australian journalist Peter Greste has been sentenced to seven years in an Egyptian prison after being found guilty by an Egyptian court of spreading ‘false news’ and supporting the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood. We join with many other human rights organisations around the world to condemn this decision, which appears to have been made in the absence of credible evidence that would support the charges made against Greste and his Al Jazeera colleagues, Egyptian-Canadian journalist Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed.

PEN Melbourne calls for the reversal of this cruel decision on behalf of our fellow writers, journalists who have already been punished by being imprisoned unjustly for over six months for the peaceful exercise of their profession as reporters, and their right to free expression. We call upon the Egyptian authorities to release the three journalists immediately and unconditionally. PEN Melbourne is one of 145 PEN centres around the world; PEN centres are voices for literature and freedom of expression in their respective countries, supported by PEN International.

 

Please also see below, an open letter that Peter Greste sent from Tora Prison in February:

 

I am nervous as I write this. I am in my cold prison cell after my first official exercise session – four glorious hours in the grass yard behind our block and I don’t want that right to be snatched away.

I’ve been locked in my cell 24 hours a day for the past 10 days, allowed out only for visits to the prosecutor for questioning, so the chance for a walk in the weak winter sunshine is precious.

So too are the books on history, Arabic and fiction that my neighbours have passed to me, and the pad and pen I now write with.

I want to cling to these tiny joys and avoid anything that might move the prison authorities to punitively withdraw them. I want to protect them almost as much as I want my freedom back.

That is why I have sought, until now, to fight my imprisonment quietly from within, to make the authorities understand that this is all a terrible mistake, that I’ve been caught in the middle of a political struggle that is not my own. But after two weeks in prison it is now clear that this is a dangerous decision. It validates an attack not just on me and my two colleagues but on freedom of speech across Egypt.

All of a sudden, my books seem rather petty. I had been in Cairo only two weeks before interior ministry agents burst through the door of my hotel room, that of my colleague and producer Mohamed Fahmy, and into the home of Al Jazeera’s second producer Baher Mohamed.

Accuracy, fairness, and balance

We had been doing exactly as any responsible, professional journalist would – recording and trying to make sense of the unfolding events with all the accuracy, fairness and balance that our imperfect trade demands.

Most of the time, it is not a difficult path to walk. But when the Egyptian government declared the Muslim Brotherhood to be “terrorist organisation”, it knocked the middle ground out of the discourse. When the other side, political or otherwise, is a “terrorist”, there is no neutral way. As George W. Bush loved to point out after 9/11, you are either with the government or with the terrorists. So, even talking to them becomes an act of treason, let alone broadcasting their news however benign.

The following day, the government fleshed out its definition of the term. Anyone caught handing out Muslim Brotherhood leaflets, or simply participating in protest marches against the government could be arrested and imprisoned for “spreading terrorist ideology”.

The Muslim Brotherhood has lost much of the support and credibility once had when its political leader Mohamed Morsi became Egypt’s first democratically elected president just over a year and a half ago. And many here hold it responsible for a growing wave of islamist violence, but it remains the single largest and best organised social and political force in Egypt. What then for a journalist striving for “balance, fairness and accuracy?” How do you accurately and fairly report on Egypt’s ongoing political struggle without talking to everyone involved?

I worried about this at the time with Mohamed Fahmy, but we decided that the choice was obvious – as obvious as the price we are now paying for making it.

The three of us have been accused of collaborating with a terrorist organisation [the Muslim Brotherhood], of hosting Muslim Brotherhood meetings in our hotel rooms, of using unlicensed equipments to deliberately broadcast false information to further their aims and defame and discredit the Egyptian state.

The state has presented no evidence to support the allegations, and we have not been formally charged with any crime. But the prosecutor general has just extended our initial 15-day detention by another 15 days to give investigators more time to find something. He can do this indefinitely – one of my prison mates has been behind bars for 6 months without a single charge.

“The prisons are overflowing”

I am in Tora prison – a sprawling complex in the south of the city where the authorities routinely violate legally enshrined prisoners’ rights, denying visits from lawyers, keeping cells locked for 20 hours a day (and 24 hours on public holidays) and so on. But even that is relatively benign compared to the conditions my colleagues are being held in.

Fahmy and Baher have been accused of being Muslim Brotherhood members, So they are being held in the far more draconian “Scorpion prison” built for convicted terrorists. Fahmy has been denied the hospital treatment he badly needs for a shoulder injury he sustained shortly before our arrest. Both men spend 24 hours a day in their mosquito-infested cells, sleeping on the floor with no books or writing materials to break the soul- destroying tedium. Remember we have not been formally charged, much less convicted of any crime. But this is not just about three Al Jazeera journalists. Our arrest and continued detention sends a clear and unequivocal message to all journalists covering Egypt, both foreign and local.

The state will not tolerate hearing from the Muslim Brotherhood or any other critical voices. The prisons are overflowing with anyone who opposes or challenges the government. Secular activists are sentenced to three years with hard labour for violating protest laws after declining an invitation to openly support the government; campaigners putting up “No” banners ahead of the constitutional referendum are summarily detained.

Anyone, in short, who refuses to applaud the institution. So our arrest is not a mistake, and as a journalist this IS my battle. I can no longer pretend it’ll go away by keeping quiet and crossing my fingers. I have no particular fight with the Egyptian government, just as I have no interest in supporting the Muslim Brotherhood or any other group here. But as a journalist I am committed to defending a fundamental freedom of the press that no one in my profession can credibly work without. One that is deemed vital to the proper functioning of any open democracy, including Egypt’s with its new constitution.

Of course we will continue to fight this from inside prison and through the judicial system here. But our freedom, and more importantly the freedom of the press here, will not come without loud sustained pressure from human rights and civil society groups, individuals and governments who understand that Egypt stability depends as much as on its ability to hold open honest conversations among its people and the world, as it does on its ability to crush violence.

We know it is already happening, and all of us are both moved and strengthened by the extraordinary support we have already had, but it needs to continue.

Peter Greste
Tora prison

TAKE ACTION

You can voice your protest at the jailing of Peter Greste and his colleagues by writing to:

The Hon. Ambassador Mr Khaled Rizk
Consul General of the Arab Republic of Egypt
Level 6, 50 Market Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000

Egypt: Al-Jazeera journalists must be released (PEN International)

 Al-Jazeera correspondents Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohammad.
Al-Jazeera correspondents Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohammad.

Harsh prison sentences handed down today to three Al-Jazeera (English) journalists must be overturned and the journalists freed immediately, PEN International said today.

Correspondent Peter Greste, and producers Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed were sentenced to seven, seven and ten years respectively on charges of having links to a “terrorist organisation” and “spreading false news”.

PEN International believes that their arrest and imprisonment is part of an escalating crackdown on dissent in Egypt, in which journalists, writers, civil rights activists, and independent or critical voices are amongst those targeted for their reporting or peaceful activism.

These sentences signal a death knell for freedom of expression and the independence of the judiciary in Egypt” said Marian Botsford Fraser, Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee.

The international community must respond swiftly, not only on behalf of foreign journalists, but on behalf of the citizens of Egypt, for whom democracy is in grave danger.”

Al Jazeera correspondent Peter Greste, an Australian national, Mohammed Fahmy, who has dual Canadian and Egyptian nationality, and Egyptian national Baher Mohamed were arrested on 29 December 2013 following Interior Ministry accusations of illegally broadcasting from a hotel suite.

Peter Greste, who has worked for the BBC, is accused of collaborating with “terrorists” by talking to Muslim Brotherhood members. Al-Jazeera Cairo bureau chief Mohammed Fahmy and producer Baher Mohamed are accused of the more serious offence of membership of the Brotherhood.

Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based TV channel, has said the men were merely reporting the situation in Egypt. Since 25 December 2013 the Egyptian authorities have labelled the Muslim Brotherhood – the political group that the Al-Jazeera journalists are accused of supporting- as a terrorist group.

According to diplomats and rights campaigners who observed the trial, no credible evidence was put forward to support the verdict. The three journalists are planning to appeal their convictions.

PEN calls on Egypt’s interim government to immediately and unconditionally release all those held solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression, in accordance with the international treaties to which it is bound.