For Shawkan, Another Delay

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

A journalist’s job is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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The next hearing in the ongoing trial of Mahmoud Abu Zeid (photo at top), an Egyptian photojournalist who goes by the name “Shawkan,” will be Saturday, April 8, it was learned this morning.

Shawkan’s ongoing story, with its staggered month-by-month steps, is one of the denial of basic human rights by a nation allied with Western governments, but it also has been a story of many citizens stepping up and making certain that Shawkan’s story is heard. Both stories are worth knowing.

For those unaware of Shawkan’s story, I recently wrote the following background article:
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The Verdict Against Badawi is Upheld–What Comes Next?

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Raif Badawi remains in prison. Raif Badawi still awaits 950 lashes with a whip. Raif Badawi remains in danger. Saudi Arabia’s thought-police know that the slow drip-drip-drip of news about a prisoner’s legal status is one more form of punishment.

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Raif Badawi learned today, March 20, that both the verdict against him and the one million riyal (approx. $266,663) fine leveled against him have been upheld by Saudi Arabia’s judicial system.

The immediate impact of these decisions is not known. There are many questions, not the least of which is: what effect might today’s decision have on the other two other parts of Raif Badawi’s sentence—ten years in prison and 1000 lashes with a whip? The answer is yet to be revealed.

Later this spring, Badawi will pass the five-year mark in prison. (Today, March 20, 2017, is Raif Badawi’s 1760th day in prison.) On January 9, 2015, fifty lashes were administered with a cane, and 950 more remain undelivered to this day. Will the whipping be resumed? Or, optimistically, if the fine can be paid in full, might that be a way for humanity to pry Raif Badawi from the inhumane Saudi Arabian judicial system, in which the act of thinking is considered a crime worthy of corporal punishment?
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203 Freed in Egypt; Shawkan Not Among Them

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

A journalist’s job is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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The “Detained Youth Committee” that was established by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in 2016 to “look into the conditions of pre-trial detainees arrested in cases related to freedom of expression” gave him on Monday its second list of detainees to release or pardon. A total of 203 names were on the list and today Egypt’s president announced pardons for all 203, according to news agencies.

Mahmoud Abu Zeid (photo at top), an Egyptian photojournalist who goes by the name “Shawkan,” was not one of the 203. His name was not on the list.

The president does not possess the authority to interfere in Egypt’s judicial processes, but he can issue pardons.

Photographs of the happy reunions between the newly released prisoners and their family members started to be published this morning: “Prisoners pardoned by presidency released.” It is the sort of news story that Shawkan would have been reporting with his camera, but his livelihood and more than three years of his life have both been stolen by Egypt.
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