UN CHIEF CALLS ON EGYPT TO RELEASE ALL JOURNALISTS

Cairo,  13 Rabi’ul Akhir 1436/3 February 2015 (MINA) – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called on Egyptian officials to release all journalists detained in the country.

The call came on Monday a day after Egypt released Peter Greste, the Australian reporter working for Al-Jazeera, from prison and ordered him to leave the African country.

The Egyptian Interior Ministry said on Sunday that Greste was released following a presidential “approval”, Press Tv quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

“The secretary-general welcomes the decision of the Egyptian authorities to release the detained journalist Peter Greste. The secretary-general notes that there are other journalists still detained in Egypt and hopes that their cases will also be resolved shortly,” a statement by Ban’s spokesman said.

Under a new law ratified by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, foreigners who are arraigned in Egypt can be put on trial or serve their sentences in their homelands.

“The Secretary-General again underscores the importance of safeguarding freedom of speech and association in Egypt,” the statement added, stressing Ban’s “continued commitment to supporting the Egyptian people’s struggle for stability, democracy, and prosperity.”

Greste and his two other Al-Jazeera colleagues, Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed, were accused of abetting Muslim Brotherhood, which has been blacklisted by the Egyptian government as a terrorist party.

It is not yet clear if the two other detained journalists are set to be released.

Back in June 2014, an Egyptian court sentenced the three journalists working for Al-Jazeera news channel to seven years in prison over what the Egyptian judiciary called terrorism-related charges.

Mohamed was given a further three years in jail on a separate charge involving possession of “unlicensed ammunition.”

The rights groups have severely criticized the government of President Sisi for launching a heavy-handed crackdown on journalists and stifling freedom of speech in the Arab country.

Rights groups say the crackdown on supporters of Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, has left over 1,400 people dead and 22,000 arrested, while hundreds have been sentenced to death in mass trials.

Morsi was ousted in July 2013 in a military coup led by Sisi, the army commander at the time. (T/P011/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)