IMAGE: PETER MACDIARMID/GETTY IMAGES
LONDON — Friends, colleagues and supporters of the three Al Jazeera journalists who were arrested in Egypt exactly one year ago have gathered outside the Egyptian embassy to protest against their incarceration.
Staff from Channel 4, CNN and other organisations held banners bearing the hashtag #FreeAJStaff and taped their mouths shut during the silent protest to draw attention to the trio’s ongoing sentence, at the start of a week that could see their case up for a retrial.
Baher Mohamed, Mohamed Fahmy and Peter Greste were arrested in Cairo on Dec. 29, 2013, and convicted on terrorism-related charges in June.
Mohamed, an Egyptian producer, received a sentence of 10 years in prison while Egyptian-Canadian Fahmy, Al Jazeera’s Cairo bureau chief, and Australian Greste, a former BBC correspondent, were sentenced to seven years each.
The three men were covering protests by supporters of the ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi and subsequently arrested as part of a crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood. They pleaded innocence and insisted they were simply doing their jobs as journalists.
The managing director of Qatar-based Al-Jazeera English, Al Anstey, said at the time that “not a shred of evidence was found to support the extraordinary and false charges against them.”
One Al Jazeera staff member appeared at the London protest handcuffed to people wearing face masks of current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who is reportedly able to issue a pardon but maintains he will not interfere in the judicial process.
On Jan. 1, Egypt’s Court of Cassation will hear an appeal for the three journalists and examine whether proper legal procedures were followed at the time. It could either uphold the guilty verdict or order a retrial.
Greste’s father, Juris, told the BBC that he is hoping for a better outcome this time.
“The first trial was full of flaws and controversy,”
“The first trial was full of flaws and controversy,” he said. “We believe that the only decision that the Court of Cassation can make is to overturn the original verdict. Therein will be Egypt’s opportunity to demonstrate the integrity and independence of its appeals system.”
However, Juris Greste remained skeptical, telling the Associated Press that he has “learned not to react to expectations and rumors and talk.”
“We will only be certain of anything when we can embrace Peter and, as I have said before, when we are at 30,000 feet in a civilian aircraft in direction to home,” he added.
Al Jazeera released another video to mark the one-year anniversary.
Journalists and human rights groups have condemned their sentences, as have the White House and the British Foreign Office. The National Union of Journalists called the sentences “outrageous”. Another clip rounds up a year of solidarity:
Al Jazeera also staged a day of solidarity for the journalists in February.